Q: iTunes store account hacked

Bursting your bubble - I don't have Paypal linked to iTunes.  Had my CC in there, but when I got hacked they changed the CC info.

It seems like a lot of people are having itunes accounts hacked and I have not had to exprience this unfortunate event. But it really seems the simple way to handle this problem is to buy itunes gift cards and not have a credit card on file.

I realize that this will not work for a many people due to the volume of purchases they make. But it does help in preventing this from happening.

Just a thought.

Maybe you have not read much of the thread at all..

Those with CC's are NOT having a problem... the problem is those with a gift card balance.

I have had a CC in my account for years, no problems. Two things changed, I bought a custom iMac from Apple and I put in a gift card.

Gift card gets drained, and since they can't just guess the CC code on the back of the card... the CC gets removed from the account and is not involved. Some get the PayPal accounts hit along with any balance they had.

I have read almost every post in the thread, I don't recall CC's getting hit.

Mine was.  No paypal or gift card and card number wasn't changed.

Apple replied to me last night. I spent all day trying to set up an account without a credit card (apple are not getting near that again) Finally after many hours of head scration and cache clearing I factory reset my iphone and managed it.

2 minutes later I got a note from Apple saying that they cleared the bill. However I needed to provide upto date credit card info to reset the account. Ive replied asking for the account to be deleted.

I expect that these attacks are due to a loose apple api that lets somebody make unlimited login attempts on an account without being denied. Once you can log in you can do anything, authorise computers, change details etc.

Ebay and other credit card holding info companies block very quickly after a few failures.

Apple must know they have an issue but maybe it is not commercially viable to fix. After all if you refund a discovered hack then they just dont pay royalties on those apps/songs.

If they admitted a problem then people would leave very rapidly and revenues could tumble. I would expect that they are fixing the issue and hoping that the issue does not get huge press before they ahve a fix.

I recommend letting everyone know you have been hacked, post it on facebook, If for nothing else it might make people be very careful of any changes to thier account or of small credit card charges they did not expect.

Actually I have read numerous post's about people having their itunes account hacked. This is an age old problem and had been going for quite sometime.

Whether people are using CC's or debit cards that are linked to their itunes account this has been going on a long time.

There will always be a risk with keeping CC info stored with online shopping sites that people use frequently. I personally do not like to store my info with a shopping site regardless of their reputation, i.e, amazon, ebay, overstock, barnes & noble, etc.

And I would much prefer to have my itunes account hacked, ( I'm thankful that it has not been ) with a gift card stored instead of a CC and risk of charges being made on the card. For me it would be much easier to lose a small amount of money than large CC charges.

Mine was hacked with my debit card on file just this past weekend.  Still waiting on a response from ITunes, but I called my bank and they are showing that the purchases were made from overseas.  The first one was a $1.00 pre-authorization charge, then a $22.97 charge, and then a $65.97 charge.  Also, where it has our account information, I didn't really look at it all too close yet, I will when I get home from work, but the other thing that stood out at me this morning was the account nickname.  We have never put in an acccount nickname, but now it says "Guess who????Its ME!!!!"  So I'm assuming that must be the hacker that did that as well.  I will definantly not be linking a debit/credit card to ITunes anymore, for sure!

I just had this happen to me recently. I initially thought they hacked into my debit card, because my card was not stored in iTunes. I had two debit card charges of 20.41 each.. It seems that they did hack into my iTunes, and somehow got my debit card number. I went back in to verify and it was not in there. Now there is an outstanding balance of 27 something on my iTunes from a declined card, my birthdate has been changed, and my country is now set to china.

My only authorized devices are my computers, and I have since scanned both to ensure I have no viruses etc., even though I have av programs on both. I assumed it could not by my iPad, but since they seem to still be getting access, I have no idea.

I just sent a message today, so hopefully they will fix this before any more charges are incurred. I am unsure how they got into it again yesterday, as I changed my userid a few days ago, and fortunately was able to change my password after I saw the charges.

I totally agree donkeyjacket45.

It seems they do not want to admit they have a security breach.  They are rather intent on blaming the end-user.

My account was just hacked today.  I noticed several fraudulent charges and they drained my account balance.  I had a gift card balance and had never put my cc info on file.  I've contacted apple, but so far no response back.

My account was hacked on Nov. 11th but didn't notice it until 11 pm last night. What an adreneline shot.  Didn't think I'd get to sleep but as I read throught some of the 57 soon to be 58 pages, I calmed knowing I was not alone.

ExpressLane.apple.com was able to get me back my email and iDisk access. However they sent me to iTunes to be able to access my account.  Told by email they'll get back to me in 48 hours.  Luckily my Credit Union changed from Visa to MasterCard so the Visa card was not active.

One of my mentors once said:  when the knife is in my back, why are my fingerprints on it.  I take responsibility for not having been more careful in changing my passwords more often than every few years. Lesson learned.

Was a good ExpressLane iChat with the Advisor. He/She did a nice job.  Though at the end had a feeling they are timed.

Blah, this happened this morning it was only $20 but it's still a hassle to check and redo the password for everything.  Has there been any fallout after you report everything?  Has your credit been compromised?

This happens still jan.2011.

Look at here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3031164?start=90&tstart=0

50.000 accounts have been stolen and the apple-members have not been informed!

That`s the problem...the same problem like at sony...but there the comunity was informed worldwide by dayly news!

It is a case of missing information from the supplier to the customer riscing developing sensitive individual dates by continuing the own business with collateral damage ("we have decided to refund in this individual case").

That is not fair...it is a cracy interuption of confidence between the supplier and the customer!

It seems the supplier has decided that it is better to make business instead to inform the customers about insecurities and the possibility of loosing sensitive individual dates!

I said: it is a scandal!  

iTunes stolen accounts  (for google and other services: tested: came at google at the second place...the main information was from jan.2011... ...and Apple thought it not necessary to inform or lock the account if there where no feedbacks to the information)...

...incredible!

How came 50.000 accounts to a chinese website?

I think, this is not a problem of individual insecurity.

Tell me!

Beside:

To take a e-mail as account-id is not secure course many people now some e-mail-adresses.

The e-mail-adress should stay in the background while the user should be able to name the own id-name by self. 

For every payment there should be send a code-nr to the e-mail-adress to make shure that the order comes from the account-owner!

If there will be made no more securities like before i ain`t make any business with apple site anymore.

If you don`t tell me exactly how 50.000 accounts came to a chinese website...just the same like above.

Instead of Genesis`s Selling England by the pound i see here Apple and Selling people by account

If I google I can`t find  "Apple" "and" "Selling people by account"...I wait.

Hieverybody,

I am the latest victim in this saga. I was trying to register my new shiny Iphone, when the message to reset my password came in. Done that,however on a closer inspection I have noticed few transactions that I did not do,were for some Iphone in game currency. Since I just got my very first Iphonetoday, there is no way I could had authorised these transactions.

I e-mailed support, but I don't think I will ever see my money.

Have a nice day!

******* ****! Hacked again last night. PayPal amounts from $15.50 to $180, and account balance wiped whole. I'm still waiting Apple.....