email virus WhatsApp - sending itself to all in my address book

now you are just trolling.

to see if others have the same problem. Yes they do.

I tried to change the Primary email to my iCloud email address (to which my Apple ID is registered) and I got this so I think you are wrong

Yes, uninformed users are not unique, you are just one example.

It's easy to not see posts from me again. Just stop posting false information. Better yet stop posting altogether.

And once again, you say you've been doing this since before I was born, yet you still don't know how old I am.

adbase wrote:

I tried to change the Primary email to my iCloud email address (to which my Apple ID is registered) and I got this so I think you are wrong

Nope, I use an @mac address as my Apple ID, @mac is an Apple domain (last time I looked)

stevejobsfan0123 wrote:

It's easy to not see posts from me again. Just stop posting false information. Better yet stop posting altogether.

And once again, you say you've been doing this since before I was born, yet you still don't know how old I am.

Facts?

This chap doesn't need facts.

James Mitchell1 wrote:

now you are just trolling.

Yes, I'm taking lessons from you, how am I doing teacher?

I use an iCloud address for my Apple ID but it won't allow an Apple owned domain to be the Primary Email Address on the account (although it is happy for it to be the alternate email address).

adbase wrote:

Could it be that when this link is clicked in the email that the iPad is compromised and sends password details out?

Nope. According to James Mitchell's posts here, he has heard of this problem occurring on Macs, iPads and Blackberries. (It would certainly affect Windows users as well, we're just not talking about that here.)

Now, there are two proposed explanations for the spam e-mails here:

1) There is malware that installs automatically when clicking a link in the e-mail

2) The account somehow gets compromised remotely

In order for #1 to be the case, the malware would have to be targeting a vulnerability of some kind in the OS. There is no OS in the world that wants a click on a link in an e-mail to result in execution of arbitrary code. That is, by definition, a bug and a very serious security issue, the kind of thing that gets patched very quickly.

Thus, in order for #1 to be true, there would have to be identical vulnerabilities in at least 3-4 different operating systems! These vulnerabilities would also have to be currently unknown to all companies whose systems are vulnerable, as well as to the entire security community. Of course, it's also very unlikely that the same maliciously-crafted e-mail would be capable of hitting all these vulnerabilities, since the method of exploiting the vulnerability would almost have to vary from OS to OS. So we'd either have to hypothesize that the vulnerabilities were all literally identical (pretty much impossible, given the very different codebases), or we'd have to say that custom-crafted e-mails were sent out with full advance knowledge of what OS the recipient was going to be running (very unlikely, since even a single individual may check mail from devices running 3 or 4 different systems, and the spammer could never predict which device would be the first to receive the message).

By now, you should be getting the idea that the chances of #1 being true are astronomically small. But let's suppose it actually happened. If some hacker could actually satisfy the conditions required for #1, he/she would be sitting on a literal vulnerability gold mine, probably worth millions on the black market. To waste such a set of powerful vulnerabilities that cross all major (and some non-major) operating systems by using it as part of a goofy spam e-mail scam - which would bring such vulnerabilities to the attention of the security community - would be idiocy.

Now, let's suppose that there is some genius hacker out there who is also very stupid, and he does find these vulnerabilities and then exploit them in just about the dumbest and least profitable way possible. If that actually happened, someone in the security community would have figured out what he did by now. Contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, it's simply not possible to hide malware once security folks have a clue to work with. Once the delivery mechanism has been found, the malware - or at least proof of its existence - will be revealed in short order. Neither I nor anyone else in the security community have found any evidence of any malware involved in this, however.

So, in the real world, only #2 is a possibility.

adbase wrote:

I use an iCloud address for my Apple ID but it won't allow an Apple owned domain to be the Primary Email Address on the account (although it is happy for it to be the alternate email address).

iCloud is an Apple domain, so if it is also your Apple ID you just contradicted yourself.

Is your iCloud address your Apple ID, yes or no please.

Yes it is but when I sign into iCloud via Safari on my iMac which comes up with a little box showing my iCloud email address and asking me for my password and I then go to Settings and then Manage my Apple ID, there it shows the Primary email address belonging to the account and this cannot be an Apple owned domain. I'm not imagining it, maybe it is something that applies to people in the UK.

adbase wrote:

Yes it is

and this cannot be an Apple owned domain

It can't be both yes and no, if you can sign into iCloud with it then it is a functional iCloud ID, and if it is an iCloud email address then it is an Apple domain.

I'm really confused by this because I'm sure I only have one Apple ID but it appears I can sign in using either email address. I would love to ditch Gmail completely because I hardly use it but I just cant change the primary email address stored to my iCloud address ...as you can see because it can't be an Apple owned domain.