Apple CEO Tim Cook And iCloud

Great Fire, a reputed non-profit organization that monitors Internet censorship in China, has claimed that Chinese authorities are staging a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack on Apple Inc’s iCloud, saying “This is clearly a malicious attack on Apple in an effort to gain access to usernames and passwords and consequently all data stored on iCloud such as iMessages, photos, contacts, etc.”

Great Fire lays the blame on Chinese authorities; however, other experts have told the Wall Street Journal that the individuals responsible for the attack on iCloud could not be identified. Regardless of who is responsible, the attack is likely to build further tension between America and China, who are already involved in a cyber-security war.

Apple stated on its support website: “We’re aware of intermittent organised network attacks using insecure certificates to obtain user information and we take this very seriously. These attacks don’t compromise iCloud servers, and they don’t impact iCloud sign in on iOS devices or Macs running OS X Yosemite using the Safari browser”.

Apple made no mention of China or provided any further details about the attack. However, a man-in-the-middle attack would allow a third party to obtain a user’s password by making them think they are signing into Apple’s iCloud service.

The Wall Street Journal reported that alarm signals regarding the iCloud service in China started to go off over the weekend, when some Chinese internet users started receiving warning messages on their Internet browsers. This sparked various discussions in online groups. After testing the service, Zhou Shuguang – Taiwan-based Chinese Internet activist, found that the communication channels, linking the iCloud server and iCloud users, had been hijacked.

In addition, Erik Hjelmvik, an analyst with Netresec AB, a network-security-software vendor in Sweden, arrived at a similar conclusion after reviewing data posted online by Chinese Internet users.

“It’s evident that it’s quite massive,” Mr Hjelmvik said. “The attack was quite sophisticated in that they apparently have quite a huge system set up in order to be able to intercept on such a large scale.”

The attack appears to be unrelated to last month’s hacking of celebrities’ iCloud accounts. Apple said that its servers were not breached in that episode, rather its investigation had found that hackers obtained passwords using ‘phishing attacks’ or by guessing answers to security questions.

photo credit: BasBoerman via photopin cc