August 25, 2010 by James Oliver
Customers of both PayPal and iTunes online services have been hit by a scam which sees many people having funds taken out of their accounts. According to reports, people whose iTunes accounts are linked to PayPal services have been targeted by fraudsters, as they remove funds from accounts. It is thought that the victims of the fraud have been scammed through an e-mail hoax which encourages people to hand over their details to the scammers.
Both Apple and PayPal have not yet issued any comment to the people affected about the scam, or what action to take if they have been the victim of fraud through the sites. The scam is not thought to have taken palace as a result of a failure or flaw on either the Apple or PayPal security or site functions.
People have been tweeting and blogging, stating: “I just got hacked for $1,000 worth of software, videos and music,” and “My account was charged over $4,700. I called security at PayPal and was told a large number of iTunes stores accounts were compromised.” A third victim has commented: “My iTunes account just got hacked and someone made about $700 worth of purchases. I contacted Paypal and they said Apple has gotten so many attacks since June, they can barely keep up with reporting them all.”
Apparently, Apple have released new enhanced security measures in an effort to prevent further fraud from taking place. PayPal has committed to reimburse anyone who has fallen foul of the scam, although they have not released details as to how it has occurred, nor how many people have been affected.
Apple spoke to the BBC, commenting: “iTunes is always working to prevent fraud and enhance the password security of all of our users. But if your credit card or iTunes password is stolen and used on iTunes we recommend that you contact your financial institution and inquire about cancelling the card and/or issuing a chargeback for any unauthorised transactions. We also recommend that you change your iTunes account password immediately.”
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