CBS New York interviewed me on May 28th for a story on the latest iPhone scam: Hackers are logging in to people’s iCloud accounts (usually because those passwords aren’t very strong), and are then using the Find My iPhone feature to lock their iPhones and demanding ransom payments to unlock them.
To avoid getting your iPhone hacked for ransom, there are three steps to take:
- Make sure your iPhone has a 4-digit passcode.
- Make sure your iCloud password is a secure one (12 characters, with uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols).
- Set up the two-step verification for your Apple ID, as per this Apple support page on two-step verification.
I’m quoted in the CBS story as follows:
“iPhone security expert Ivan Drucker warned the scam can happen anywhere. ‘It could be you, and it really could be anybody — no one is really immune,’ Drucker said.”
Re the two-step verification: ” ‘When you log in, you receive a special number on your phone and then you type that in as well. That makes it almost impossible for somebody else on the Internet to log in because they don’t have your phone,’ Drucker said.”
Watch the video by clicking this link: Thieves Hack iPhones (It’s Flash so it won’t work on your iPhone or iPad.)