In the largest hacking of iPhone accounts in history, more than 225,000 iPhones have been hacked by Chinese hackers using a malware called KeyRaider that steals the passwords, private keys and certificates of its victims.  The hacked phones are spread around 18 countries including the United States, China, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Israel, Russia, Singapore, South Korea and Spain.  Only iPhones that have been jailbroken are affected by this malware.  Jailbreaking is the name for the term that describes when iPhone owners remove the Apple installed security settings of the phone, often done by the phone’s owner in order to be able to install  apps that are not approved by Apple.  Armed with the information stolen through the malware, the hacker can access the victim’s data from the Cloud including photographs and documents.  The hackers can also order non-free apps from the App Store  using the victim’s account and in perhaps the worst result of the hacking, the hacker can lock the victim’s phone and cloud account until a ransom is paid.

TIPS

If you have jailbroken your iPhone, you should have the phone checked to see if your phone was one of them hacked through KeyRaider.  If your phone was affected, obviously you should have the malware removed, however, you should then change your Apple account password.  You also would be wise to enable two-factor identification, which Apple provides and which will dramatically improve the security of your Apple devices.  Had the celebrities whose nude photos were hacked and leaked last year been using dual-factor authentication, there photos would never have been stolen.  Using dual-factor authentication is a good idea for everyone whenever possible.