I suggest you change your password, and pick something long and random - I know I have. If you have an iCloud account, let this be a warning to you.
Once signed into your Gmail, click on your account profile icon in the top right corner. While this is no doubt more hassle than just using just the username and password, it dramatically improves account security. If you already have access to your Gmail account and want to change your password anyway, you can do that, too. Here, along with your username and password, you can set your Google account to ask you for a six-digit code that Google will send via text message to your phone. Short passwords are almost as bad as no password at all, in fact, they're worse because they lull you into a false sense of security.Īs pointed out in the comments on Honan's post, another problem with iCloud is that you only need a username and password to access the account, while Google accounts can be protected by a 2-step verification. It's a long process, but if the password is simple or short enough, it's doable. Honan believes that this was done by a process called brute forcing, that is, trying passwords until you get lucky. To do all the damage all the hackers needed to do was to get their hands on a single username and password. Because I’m a jerk who doesn’t back up data, I’ve lost at more than a year’s worth of photos, emails, documents, and more. Apple tells me that the remote wipe is likely irrecoverable without serious forensics. My phone and iPads are down (but are restoring). At 5:05, they remote wiped my MacBook Air.
