Mystery surrounds iTunes/PayPal web scam

Here’s the story so far.

On Monday, TechCrunch reported that there appeared to be a “major security hole” in iTunes accounts which were linked to PayPal. Affected users began to report that somehow unauthorised charges had appeared on their PayPal accounts associated with iTunes purchases – with some reporting they had found themselves out of pocket to the tune of $1000.

Some resorted to posting on Facebook about the theft from their PayPal account:

on Twitter:

and on Apple’s online support forum:

Initially there was much speculation that either iTunes or PayPal had suffered a security breach. PayPal declined to comment, beyond saying that they were reimbursing unauthorised charges and advising victims to contact Apple if they had further questions.

Apple, for their part, shed no…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.