Hacker claims to have access to Steve Jobs' Amazon account
Hacker claims to have access to Steve Jobs' Amazon account
May 14, 2009
A hacker going by the tag of orin0co has contacted at least one member of the Mac press claiming that he has compromised the Amazon.com account of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Leander Kahney of Cult of Mac has included his correspondence with the individual in an article posted early this morning.
The hacker claims that he obtained the information as a result of a phishing scheme he put together two years ago. At that time, he emailed IT personalities claiming to be Amazon looking for recipients to update their Amazon login information, address, credit card numbers, and phone numbers. Allegedly, Steve Jobs' Amazon account has over 10 years of purchases totaling somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000 items, along with the CEO's credit card information. The individual also sent a screenshot of an Amazon.com Prime account history page with a "Hello, Steve Jobs" greeting at the top of the page as proof of his claims. According to the information provided, the account hasn't had any purchase activity in over two years.
Amazon was apparently not aware of any security breaches, Kahney wrote, and in a tweet, Kahney disclosed that Apple PR was "grateful" to receive the information (while still providing no comment). The hacker, who appears to be a non-native English speaker, is not looking to sell the information for "small money," but didn't include any figures or how the potential transaction would take place.
Although the scenario is certainly plausible, the lack of hard evidence prevents us from buying into this story. A website screenshot is easy to fake, and claiming you have information you don't is even easier. Additionally, as Cult of Mac points out, 20,000 purchases is a gigantic number even for a billionaire. It seems more likely that this is merely a scam to collect a large sum of money for fake or nonexistent information.
The author of the e-mails seems very eager to sell, however, which is odd if he has indeed had access to the account for two years. It also seems odd that such a prolific Amazon user would stop using the account so suddenly.
:source: Source: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...mazon-account.
