Firm admits its files had Apple consumer data

A Florida company has admitted its files — not an FBI agent’s laptop — were hacked by a renegade group that released Apple product identification data it claimed to have obtained through a breach of the nation’s top law enforcement agency.

It had initially been reported that hackers had taken 12m Apple user IDs from an FBI computer.

“We want to apologise, announce what happened and set the record straight,” said Paul DeHart, chief executive officer of software company BlueToad Inc.

FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said: “It certainly does appear that BlueToad was where the information was actually compromised.”

BlueToad hosts more than 5,000 worldwide publications including consumer magazines and business documents, and creates apps for its clients. DeHart said the company experiences about 1,000 unsuccessful break-in attempts a day.

DeHart said his company realised it had been hacked soon after the group “AntiSec”, an affiliate of Anonymous, posted a file on the internet with the identification numbers for what it claimed were 12m Apple devices on Sept 3.

“A third party reached out to us who was examining the list that was on the internet and said, ‘Hey, we see some connections to you guys,’” DeHart said.

He said fewer than two million device IDs were obtained by the hackers rather than the 12m the group claimed.

He said his company, which does not collect private information such as Social Security numbers or credit card information, plugged the hole in its security system and has hired a national security firm to perform a complete security analysis.

The Apple ID numbers, called unique device identifiers or UDIDs, are a sequence of letters and numbers assigned to Apple products, such as iPhones or iPads. Many Web-based mobile applications and gaming networks use UDIDs to identify users.

Marc Maiffret, chief technology officer of security firm BeyondTrust, said the data dump itself, while serious, would not prove to be very damaging to consumer privacy, and would not allow hackers to break into peoples’ iPhones.

— Reuters