Apple device hijackers arrested in Russia

You may recall that at the end of last month, a number of iOS users were locked out of their devices by ransomware, being faced with a message that their iPhone or iPad had been "hacked by Oleg Pliss", and a demand for $100 to unlock it.

Well, the Sydney Morning Herald (via MacRumors) is now reporting that the device hijacking miscreants behind this scheme have been arrested by the Russian authorities. Some Russian folks were affected by the security incident, as well as those in Australia (and a few other countries such as the US and Canada).

The SMH wrote: "The hackers -- aged 17 and 23 -- were detained in the course of 'operational activities' by the Russian Interior Ministry, Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs said. They are both residents of the Southern Administrative District of Moscow and one has already been tried before, it said".

They were apparently arrested after being caught on CCTV attempting to withdraw a victim's ransom payment from a cash machine, a Russian site (MKRU) further reported.

Two weeks ago, Apple was quick to make it clear that iCloud had not suffered any kind of security breach which led to these devices being hijacked, stating that: "Apple takes security very seriously and iCloud was not compromised during this incident". And indeed this report notes that the hackers grabbed the relevant Apple ID login details probably via data breaches on other sites (and the re-use of those passwords).

We've said it before, and we'll doubtless say it again -- never reuse the same password for different accounts. If you struggle to remember passwords to the extent that you're tempted to do this, then the best bet is to get yourself a password manager (see our closer look at the best password managers).

At any rate, it doesn't look like 'Mr Pliss' will be attempting this trick again anytime soon.

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