According to a Chinese web monitoring group, Apple’s iCloud in China was attacked by hackers who wanted user credentials. Greatfire.org wrote a blog post describing how the hackers used a MITM (man in the middle) attack where they put their own website between the iCloud server and users, catching the data and possibly gaining access to passwords, contacts, iMessages, and photos. The web monitoring group alleged that the government is involved in the attack, saying it looked a lot like earlier attacks on Microsoft Corp’s Hotmail, Yahoo Inc, and Google Inc. A spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said that Beijing was “resolutely opposed” to hacking and that the Chinese government has also been a victim of similar attacks.
Greatfire said that it’s unlikely that the attack could have been carried out without China Telecom’s knowledge since they appeared to originate from deep within “the Chinese domestic Internet backbone.” It also coincided with the release of iPhone 6 sales in China and shortly after Apple said it would start storing iCloud data for those users on China Telecom servers.
