For CSO Online, Steve Ragan describes how Ransom demands are written in Russian via the Find my iPhone service. Here’s how he describes the attack:
It starts with a compromised Apple ID. From there, the attacker uses Find My iPhone and places the victim’s device into lost mode. At this point, they can lock the device, post a message to the lock screen and trigger a sound to play, drawing attention to it.
Thomas Reed also described a similar attack a few months back using iCloud’s ‘Find My Mac’.
Ragan also mentions ‘a rumor concerning “rumblings of a massive (40 million) data breach at Apple.”‘ I’ve seen no confirmation of that anywhere, but it’s certainly a good time to check that your AppleID credentials are in good shape.
Commentary by Graham Cluley here. You might want to consider taking up his suggestion of enabling two-step verification on your Apple ID account, too.
David Harley
The AVIEN Portal 