Eager hackers offer thousands for Apple login information
How much is an Apple employee’s login information worth? According to a recent discovery by Business Insider, it’s worth as much as $23,000. According to a current and a former Apple employee, hackers are offering that much for their company login credentials. Furthermore, the offers are apparently quite frequent.
One Apple employee from Ireland, speaking to Business Insider on the condition of anonymity, said, “You’d be surprised how many people get on to us, just random Apple employees.” The source went on to further explain just how easy it would be for him or her to profit from those login credentials.
You get emails offering you thousands to get a password to get access to Apple. I could sell my Apple ID login information online for €20,000 tomorrow. That’s how much people are trying.
A former Apple employee confirmed this, explaining that the hackers typically target those who are relatively new to the company, not long-time employees.
They look for someone who has jumped diagonally into a junior managerial position, so not a lifer working their way up, and not a lifer who has been there a long time.
There’s no telling exactly what the hackers are after, but these particular targets of the scheme certainly couldn’t have much to offer. The office in Ireland is geared toward sales and support, not research and development, so it seems unlikely that these employees’ logins would reveal much.
Furthermore, Apple is well known for operating in terms of tightly-secured silos, with many employees not necessarily even knowing what product their work is for. Complicating matters further, employees typically need a special coded badge to enter their workplace, even in the sales and support offices in Ireland. With that level of security, it’s a fair bet that login credentials would only grant access to a limited amount of information, not necessarily a treasure trove.
The news is still troubling, however. If hackers are willing to offer that much money for the login details from a sales and support employee, then it’s almost guaranteed some are offering much more to employees in other positions. Let’s just hope, for Apple’s sake and possibly our own, that nobody bites on the fruit of greed and accepts an offer.
Featured image credit: Geeknado
