Q: iTunes store account hacked

Karen thank you for your response.  On reflection I have calmed some what.  I reviewed networks I have been on and can probably see where the hack took place, hotel wifi network.  For me it's just the hassle of dealing with the situation and the inconvenience caused.  It's like being robbed.  Yes your insured but the hassle.  I will be very mindful of the wifi networks I go on in future.  As I am new to the apple world, and it throws you.  I have had a response from apple and hopefully they will re enable my account.  I know have to wait patiently for the other bits to be sorted.  How do I check the secure email bit if you don't mind me asking.  Anyway thanks for your response, I have limited knowledge on this situation.  But I hope it can be restored ASAP.

I can honeslty not tell you how to secure you email  Aside from changing passpwords.  Interschnage numbers and letters.  o=0   or i = 1or!  s=$.  I would change all passwords.  We normally travel withour own wifi,  If I try not to use the non important things on my phone/ipad.  The minute I get home I change passwords.   I have a trip overseas somming up and have use hotel wifi.  I will be changing the passwords when I hotel jump.  And when i get home I will change them again.  Yes paraniod...   

If you are on a free wifi network assume someone is there watching the conection.  And anything done or open or accesed does have the passwrod compromised.  I know sounds harsh but,  I had all of my devises undergo the cyber forenzic investigation.  aside from some programs my husband did not care for on my computer I passed.  So I know the weekness was external of my devices.     Mond you this could have happened to any device, windows, pc, android, iphone etc..

Good luck with apple.  i got a email this morning that my accouct has been re activated.  I am again changing passowrds.    Aside from the condesending tag line in the email, that sounds like a standard line.  They have been nothing but pleasent.     I was joking with the guy yesterday on the phone and he actually laughed at my joke.  Unlike the normal person who just says nothing ( gallaxey quest was downloaded with my account and they bought a lot of dark matter. I was joking about how I hope the universerve got sucked into a black hole)

Although this is a big PITA  I have taken a payment means off my account.  In the future will get $10 itunes cards and bit and piece what I want so this can not happen again.    I will say that to me apple has handled this well.  I only had $124 in charges.  They shut the account down after the 3rd charge.  And within 24 hours of me noticing it I have my account back to normal. 

I had two unauthorized purchases show up today on Paypal via the iTunes store. They bought Kingdom at War Nobility Points for $40.

Why are these hackers using in game purchases. Are they playing these games? Is there some way to launder these purchases back to cash?

Anyway I've unlinked my Paypal account and opened a dispute on the charge. This will probably mean I will spend a lot less on the app store.

I always use strong passwords and have not used any questionable wifi networks, so I'm curious how the account could have been compromised on my end.

Happened to me today too. $80 worth of gift cards. Paypal has reversed the charges and I am definitely not going to pay Apple a dime. I haven't used my account since March 2008 because I don't like Itunes. I have contacted them to disable my account and look into the unauthorized charges. It will be their loss. As a matter of fact I had to reinstall Itunes just to access my account (which I am not happy about). As soon as I get an answer from Itunes I will be uninstalling it.

My itunes has been hacked and i hope you could give me a new itunes card number because they used all of my money and took the number with them. Screw hackers

Got hacked today

and also for kingdomconquest they totalled my clickandbuy account for 85 €

i removed my payment details and changed my password .. changed password on my clickandbuy and reported the fraus on itunes support, also informed clickandvuy to see if they could cancel the transfers and hope they ban the hackers from itunes.

it was weird opening my email and see that there was a transaction made (well several) i was @ work all day.

So when i don't get my money back i worked for the hacker today 

but why is it kingdomconquest all the time ?

should'nt it be better to disable that app before they make more victims.

And i think it is really really really bad apple did not inform his users that there where 50.000 itunes accounts up for grabs this year.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/010711-50000-stolen-itunes-accounts-for.ht ml

they better refund

I got hacked too last nite! when i woke up this morning there was 2 emails from apple that " my apple id was just used to make purchases in Kingdomquest from the appstore on a computer or device that had not previously been associated with my apple id! what kind of security is that? come on apple, you go ahead and ok a purchase from a deivce that you know is not linked to an account ?? maybe im stupid, but wouldnt that give you a heads up that something fishy is going on ??

Anyhow, it was a total of $87.00!! i emediately went to paypal to dispute those two purchases and change my passwords on both paypal and itunes and guess what? a few hours later i got another email from paypal for another purchase!! $7.00 how is that possible?? i went ahead and filed a dispute for that purchase too obviously.

The thing that irritates me the most is that apple dont offer any phone support! you can email them and hopefully someone will reply back to you within 24 hours!

The funny thing is that people always talak about how unsafe android devices are and how safe apple is,, well, im starting to have my doubts. I expect a full refund from apple!!!

this is crazy.  i rarely even use itunes and i awoke today to two unauthorized purchases totalling just under $40.00.  I have been attempting to use the express lane for hours and it keeps stating that all representatives are busy.  i have already changed my passwords on itunes and payplal.  i have also disputed the charges with paypal.

can anyone point me in the right direction to contact somone one about this?  all links keep sending me right back to the express lane and the phone number i have called keeps sending me in a loop that eventually terminates the call.

My father just got hit by this. Around $35 for Kingdom Conquest in-game purchasing (which tells me literally that it's an in-game exploit). Not sure why this game is still on iTunes after the notorious habit of Apple filtering "undesirables" from their listings.

Hopefully it'll work out for him, but this has me re-evaluating all of my security on my AppleID at this point.

Sharing the info with y'all.

We purchased a $100 gift card at a discount via BestBuy. I used about $50 of it and then an unauthorized app and in-game purchases drained it. App was Island Empire by Tap4Fun. Also, our credit card info was cleared out in iTunes and there were two unaccounted for transactions on our credit card from Apple iTunes: $.63 and ~$6.83 on the same day a week before. $.63? what can you buy for $.63!

Just logged my issue with Apple and hoping they take care of this!

Well add another to the list.

    3 purchases for Kingdom Conquest totalling $107

•     I use a separate email address and password for iTunes only
•     I am in IT and would never respond to a phishing email
•     As soon as I deauthorized Paypal from my iTunes account I was charged a third time for $36
•     Created disputes in Paypal and reported to iTunes

Really nice right before Christmas.

iadubber,

OK, now we have a professional IT person.

What in your opinion is the method they are using to access our accounts?

Are they hacking Apple's server or just using a program that guesses passwords?

Or is it something else?

And most importantly, how do we prevent it?

I'm most concerned because I figure we are going to HAVE TO migrate to iCloud in the near future, and I'm just not feeling secure about that. It could force me to switch to Windows, (yuk).

SimonJester753 wrote:

 

iadubber,

 

OK, now we have a professional IT person.

 

What in your opinion is the method they are using to access our accounts?

 

Are they hacking Apple's server or just using a program that guesses passwords?

 

Or is it something else?

 

And most importantly, how do we prevent it?

 

I'm most concerned because I figure we are going to HAVE TO migrate to iCloud in the near future, and I'm just not feeling secure about that. It could force me to switch to Windows, (yuk).

I am by no means a security expert. I did just however realize that I did share email and passwords with PSN. Could this be connected? Kingdom Conquest is made by SEGA which is a segment of SONY that was hacked earlier this year. I am thinking I did not change my iTunes info after the hack to PSN and I just started using iTunes again after a long hiatus when getting my 4S not too long ago.

Really I'm at a loss on how I could be hacked, this is the only connection I can find.

I did not have any gift card balance on my account. It was only linked to my Paypal.

iadubber wrote:

 

SimonJester753 wrote:

 

iadubber,

 

OK, now we have a professional IT person.

 

What in your opinion is the method they are using to access our accounts?

 

Are they hacking Apple's server or just using a program that guesses passwords?

 

Or is it something else?

 

And most importantly, how do we prevent it?

 

I'm most concerned because I figure we are going to HAVE TO migrate to iCloud in the near future, and I'm just not feeling secure about that. It could force me to switch to Windows, (yuk).

I am by no means a security expert. I did just however realize that I did share email and passwords with PSN. Could this be connected? Kingdom Conquest is made by SEGA which is a segment of SONY that was hacked earlier this year. I am thinking I did not change my iTunes info after the hack to PSN and I just started using iTunes again after a long hiatus when getting my 4S not too long ago.

 

Really I'm at a loss on how I could be hacked, this is the only connection I can find.

I did not have any gift card balance on my account. It was only linked to my Paypal.

Here is their response:

Dear Chad,

 

Thank you for writing to iTunes Store Support. This is Mico and I'm glad to be of service for your concern.

 

Chad, thank you for bringing this up to our attention. I understand that the purchased app "-KingdomConquest-" on your account was unauthorized. I can certainly realize how alarming that must be and I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. No worries, I'll help you get this matter resolved as quickly as possible.

 

I checked your account and determined that PayService has already initiated a refund for you, for orders MGWDGB1ZB1, MGWDGB1YDG, MGWDFJ5JGN. Please contact them if you have questions about when the refund will be posted to your account.

 

Chad, I strongly recommend you change your iTunes Store account password immediately. Changing the password will help to prevent anyone else from using your iTunes Store account to place orders without your knowledge. To increase the security of your account I highly recommend that you follow the suggestions outlined in the following article:

 

iTunes Store: Best practices for protecting the security of your account

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4156

 

If you wish, you can also remove your payment information from the iTunes Store as follows:

 

1) Open iTunes and sign in to the iTunes Store.

2) Select "View My Account" from the Store menu.

3) Enter your password and click the View Account button.

4) Click the Edit Payment Information button.

5) Select "None" as the payment type.

6) Click the Done button at the bottom of the page.

 

If you suspect you are the victim of identity theft, consider contacting the fraud departments of any consumer reporting company to place a fraud alert on your credit report.

 

To prevent further unauthorized purchase, your account is currently disabled. If you would like to request that your iTunes Store account be enabled, please reply to this email.

 

I hope this information has been helpful. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to assist you. Should you have further queries, please feel free to respond and I'd be happy to assist you. Thank you for choosing the iTunes Store. Have a great day!

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Mico

iTunes Store Customer Support

 

Please Note: I work ST-W, 8-5PM CT

I'm assuming by PayService they meant Paypal. How long does Paypal take to get a refund?

I was hacked today also through Kingdom Conquest to the tune of $91. I'm on the phone with Itunes support and I am thoroughly P**SED. This has been going on for FAR too long.