Has anyone had their iTunes account hacked recently 5/2011?

My account was hacked today. They stole the $74.01 I had in gift cards which I'd been saving since Christmas and only entered the codes for yesterday. I bought one song yesterday. They spent my money on video games as seems to be the norm. When I tried to access my account I was told I had to change the password for security reasons and I did so and I emailed "support" twice and haven't heard anything back yet; the robot response email said to give them 48 hours. As far as I can tell, they didn't change any of my account info and, thankfully, I don't have any credit cards or bank accounts tied to the account. Only one of the four things they ordered with my money appears in my list of downloads. I want my money back. And quickly.

Is the assumption that the the gift card numbers are being stolen from the factory where they're created? Why all the video games? I'm not clear on how the hackers are actually benefiting from this unless the purpose is just to screw up and drive down iTunes business.

I was scammed too. I have never even heard of this app let alone downloaded it in the first place! I lost $19.96 on 5/29/11! APPLE PLEASE CREDIT MY ACCOUNT AND FIX THIS!

I'm not convinced it's linked to gift cards. I haven't added any new gift cards to my account for over a year and I mostly use itunes on my ipod. All purchase are made through my ipod (sometimes I sync to my home computer). I've doublechecked my home computer and it definitely hasn't been compromised. That leads me to believe I downloaded a compromised app which hacked my account. I love to download puzzle games so I think it might have been an update to one of those that caused it for me (I was hacked right after updating a few apps).

Well, I don't have any apps at all and most of the people on here reporting that they've had their iTunes accounts hacked since 2007 had either just entered gift card codes or had gift cards purchased by the hackers through their accounts. The problem is clearly not with the security of any of our computers, but with iTunes in one manner or another and the gift cards seem to be the common theme.

If you search these forums, there are archived posts about this issue dating back to 2007. The system won't let me post a link to them for some reason.

Apple really needs to make a statement about this.

I guess it's possible that it's from a gift card as that is the only way I put credit onto my account (I try to avoid giving any online service free reign of my bank card info). It just seems odd to me that I'm just now getting hacked from a gift card I would have added to my account as of spring 2010 at the latest. I guess the idea that they were hacked in 2007 and people are slowly going through that information now is plausible. If that's the case do you think simply changing my password will be enough to secure my account? I've already done that, I was just nervous that the app that caused the damage was still on my ipod.

In the wake of the Sony hacking debacle, I changed all my passwords using a random password generator. I used to use the same email address and same password for everything, now every password is a different string of random characters. I have to use a password manager (iAccounts) to keep track of them all, but it's surprisingly painless.

Who knows which account was hacked? Maybe it was iTunes, maybe it was PSN, maybe it was your email provider, maybe it was a forum you posted on twice in 2003. Using separate passwords limits the damage, and really should be standard practise - it's just so easy to be lazy!

I agree you should use separate passwords for everything but sometimes that gets hard when you visit a lot of password required places. Personally I have tiers of passwords. I have unique passwords for any website that has my financial information and I mostly don't bother to remember those, I just have the website send me an e-mail or text message when I need to access that information (aside from the few sites that I visit frequently). I have 3 common passwords that I use for websites that I buy things from and I don't leave my CC info on file. I have a separate common password that I use for forums and communities that I frequent. I have another unique throwaway password that I use for forums that I don't really care about. I don't think this hack was related to any other websites that I frequent as itunes was one of the places that had a unique password. Admittedly it wasn't a very secure password seeing as it got compromised but it was unique.

I'm not convinced our passwords have anything to do with this. It seems to me the hackers are accessing our accounts from inside iTunes rather than using our accounts as points of entry.

Just to let you know that I sent a email to the iTune contact and they refunded the amount charged to my gift card.

kwdsc, how long did it take you to hear back? I've sent 3 emails and not heard from them and I never even got a confirmation of receipt email from the 3rd one.

Here's an interesting article on this subject:

Hacked Apple iTunes accounts sell in China for pennies on the dollar

A Chinese online store is selling hacked, illegal iTunes accounts tied to active credit cards, offering $200 worth of content from Apple's service for as little as $30.
China's Global Times this week revealed that about 50,000 illegal accounts are being sold through taobao.com, with prices ranging from just 1 yuan to about 200 yuan, or $30. Many of the sales are said to be stolen iTunes user accounts being re-sold by hackers.
"Potential buyers are promised access to music and movies through iTunes amounting to seven times more than the amount paid," the report said. "The only restriction is that all downloads should be made within 24 hours of the transaction being completed at Taobao."
A reporter for the publication tested the sales by paying $5 to a seller on Taobao. In return, they were provided an iTunes username and password which allowed access to an account complete with credit card details and a U.S. billing address.
Last July, it was revealed that iTunes account holders were being targeted in a number of fraud cases, in which some iOS developers used stolen accounts to boost their sales rankings of iPhone software. Apple quickly made a public response to the matter, suggesting that customers review their iTunes account for unauthorized transactions.
"Developers do not receive any iTunes confidential customer data when an app is downloaded," the company said in a statement. "If your credit card or iTunes password is stolen and used on iTunes we recommend that you contact your financial institution and inquire about canceling the card and issuing a chargeback for any unauthorized transactions. WE also recommend that you change your iTunes account password immediately."
In August, Apple also bolstered the security of its Apple ID accounts, which are shared by iTunes and store credit card information for purchases. Users must verify their account information when they log into new devices, and new iTunes account passwords must have at least 8 characters with mixed capitalization.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/01/07/hacked_apple_itunes_accounts_sell_ in_china_for_pennies_on_the_dollar.html

I had a similar event happen to me and my boyfriend both in the past 3 days. Both of our accounts were locked... I have not yet checked my account to see if there are any unauthorized charges but thanks to all of this information I definitely will. I'm just hoping that my account locked and they couldn't get in...obviously my password worked and I don't want to reset it! I sent multiple emails to apple regarding this issue and they told me to submit a complaint through their system but it seems that enough have already been sent... I would really appreciate it if Apple would look into this and find the app/issue that is causing these problems.