Reports of a crime gang holding Apple ransom, in exchange for money have been bubbling away online for a number of days. Apple has spoken out about the case for the first time.
A report by Motherboard claimed a group called “Turkish Crime Family” is threatening to wipe hardware associated with some 559 million email and iCloud accounts unless Apple hands over $100,000 in iTunes gift cards or $75,000 in cryptocurrency by April 7th.
Speaking to Fortune, a spokesperson for the company said, "There have not been any breaches in any of Apple's systems including iCloud and Apple ID. The alleged list of email addresses and passwords appears to have been obtained from previously compromised third-party services."
The report continues, citing a person familiar with the contents of the data accessed by the Turkish Crime Family, saying many user names and passwords appear to come from a LinkedIn breach in 2012.
Looking to reassure its customers, Apple said the firm is "actively monitoring to prevent unauthorised access to user accounts and are working with law enforcement to identify the criminals involved. To protect against these type of attacks, we always recommend that users always use strong passwords, not use those same passwords across sites and turn on two-factor authentication."
Here's a guide to Apple's two-factor authentication.
