{"id":927,"date":"2013-07-10T16:23:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-10T08:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/?p=927"},"modified":"2013-07-10T16:29:47","modified_gmt":"2013-07-10T08:29:47","slug":"cybercriminals-using-fake-sites-to-steal-apple-ids-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/2013\/07\/10\/cybercriminals-using-fake-sites-to-steal-apple-ids-on-the-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Cybercriminals using fake sites to steal Apple IDs on the rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"KL_mac_title\"<\/a>A rising number of cybercriminals are using fake Apple sites to try and trick users into submitting their Apple ID credentials, which would enable the criminals to steal the users\u2019s account login and access the victim\u2019s personal data, information and credit card numbers stored on their iCloud and iTunes accounts, according to a phishing report published by Kaspersky Lab.<\/strong><\/p>\n

From January 2012 through May 2013 Kaspersky Lab\u2019s cloud-based Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) detected an average of 200,000 attempts per day of users trying to access the phishing sites, which were triggered each time a user running Kaspersky Lab\u2019s products was directed to one of the fraudulent sites.<\/p>\n

The increase in average detections is a marked increase compared to 2011, which averaged only 1000 detections per day.<\/p>\n

Kaspersky Lab\u2019s web antivirus module successfully detected and prevented its users from accessing the sites; however, the increase in detections shows how these scams are becoming more commonly used by cybercriminals for phishing campaigns.<\/p>\n

Kaspersky Lab\u2019s experts analyzed the cybercriminals\u2019 behavior and patterns on a daily and monthly basis, noticing that fluctuations and increases in phishing attempts often coincided with large events from Apple.<\/p>\n

For example, on December 6, 2012, immediately following the opening of iTunes stores in India, Turkey, Russia, South Africa and an additional 52 countries, Kaspersky Lab detected an all-time record of more than 900,000 phishing attempts directing to fake Apple sites in a single day.<\/p>\n

Phishing emails posing as Apple<\/strong><\/p>\n

The main distribution method used by cybercriminals to direct users to the fraudulent Apple sites are predominantly phishing emails posing as Apple Support with fake alias names in the \u201cSender\u201d field, such as services@apple.com.<\/p>\n

The messages would typically request users to verify their account by clicking on a link and entering their Apple ID information.<\/p>\n

These emails are deceptively clever and professionally designed in order to make them appear authentic, including the use of Apple\u2019s logo and presenting the message with similar formatting, coloring and style that Apple uses.<\/p>\n

Another variation of these phishing emails are designed to steal Apple customers\u2019 credit card information. This is done by sending users an email requesting that they verify or update the credit card credentials attached to their Apple IDs, which can be done by clicking on a link in the message.<\/p>\n

The link directs the user to a phishing site that imitates how Apple requests credit card information from their customers to fool users into inputting their credit card information and other personal information.<\/p>\n

Guidance to users: Identifying phishing websites and emails<\/strong><\/p>\n

One way to distinguish between real websites and counterfeit ones created for phishing purposes is to look at the address bar of the website.<\/p>\n

While most counterfeit sites have the word \u201capple.com\u201d as part of their address (URL), the address would not be verified by Apple and would include additional text in the URL.<\/p>\n

However, identifying phishing sites become harder when users can\u2019t see the full URL address, which is typically the case when iOS users are running Safari on their iPhone or iPad devices.<\/p>\n

When users click on links from email messages on iOS devices the complete URL address is hidden from them when the page is downloaded and opened through Safari.<\/p>\n

How Apple users can protect themselves against phishing scams<\/strong><\/p>\n

Users should verify email address aliases from Apple by checking the original sender address first. On a computer this can be done by mousing over the sender address field, which reveals the sender alias\u2019 true email address.<\/p>\n

When using a mobile device, users should touch the email alias from the sender, which expands the alias to show the full address of the sender.<\/p>\n

To guard against fraud attempts, Apple also provides a two-step authentication process for Apple IDs. This process involves sending a four-digit code to one or more previously selected devices belonging to the user.<\/p>\n

This serves as an additional verification and prevents undesired changes being made on the \u201cmy Apple ID\u201d site or, for example, third parties making unauthorized purchases using your Apple ID.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this does not yet prevent cybercriminals from using stolen credit card data. Users should not follow links in questionable emails to access websites. Instead, they should manually enter website addresses into browser windows.<\/p>\n

Users who still want to use such links should carefully check their content and the address of the website they link to.<\/p>\n

In addition, Mac users should use a security software package like Kaspersky Security for Mac as standard.<\/p>\n

This will protect Mac users in real-time against viruses, trojans, spyware, phishing attempts and harmful websites, as well as preventing Macs from distributing Windows malware to friends and colleagues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cybercriminals are using fake Apple sites to try and trick users into submitting their Apple ID credentials, which would enable the criminals to steal the users\u2019s account login and access the victim\u2019s personal data, information and credit card numbers stored on their iCloud and iTunes accounts, according to a phishing report published by Kaspersky Lab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[203,286,117],"class_list":["post-927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-cybercrime","tag-it-security","tag-kaspersky-lab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}