![]() ![]() And because of that, it asked me an alternate set of questions that it said would let tech support let me into my me.com account: a billing address and the last four digits of my credit card. Because of that, I couldn’t answer my security questions. ![]() Herman, I.”Īpple had been looking at the wrong account all along. Perhaps an hour or so into the call, the Apple representative on the line said “Mr. It turned out there’s a good reason for that. One of the reasons it took me so long to get anything resolved with Apple during my initial phone call was because I couldn't answer the security questions it had on file for me. I spent an hour and a half talking to AppleCare. My MacBook data was torched simply to prevent me from getting back in. Nor were the eight years of messages in my Gmail account. My MacBook data – including those irreplaceable pictures of my family, of my child’s first year and relatives who have now passed from this life – weren’t the target. And crazily, in ways that I don’t and never will understand, those deletions were just collateral damage. And it did this after the hacker supplied only two pieces of information that anyone with an internet connection and a phone can discover.īy wiping my MacBook and deleting my Google account, they now not only had the ability to control my account, but were able to prevent me from regaining access. It did this despite the caller’s inability to answer security questions I had set up. In response, Apple issued a temporary password. Apple says the caller reported that he couldn't get into his Me.com e-mail – which, of course was my Me.com e-mail. And I only knew about the first call because a hacker told me he had made the call himself.Īt 4:33 p.m., according to Apple’s tech support records, someone called AppleCare claiming to be me. Nor would Apple tech support ever tell me about the first call voluntarily – it only shared this information after I asked about it. But the Apple rep didn't bother to tell me about the first call concerning my account, despite the 90 minutes I spent on the phone with tech support. ![]() In fact, I later found out that a call had been placed just a little more than a half an hour before my own. It wasn’t the first call they had had that day about my account. #Amazon drive for mac macUnsure of exactly what was happening, I unplugged my router and cable modem, turned off the Mac Mini we use as an entertainment center, grabbed my wife’s phone, and called AppleCare, the company’s tech support service, and spoke with a rep for the next hour and a half. For the first time it occurred to me that I was being hacked. Then the screen went gray, and asked for a four-digit PIN.īy now, I knew something was very, very wrong. When I opened my laptop, an iCal message popped up telling me that my Gmail account information was wrong. I went to connect the iPhone to my computer and restore from that backup - which I had just happened to do the other day. I entered my iCloud login to restore, and it wasn’t accepted. I just assumed it would be a pain in the ass, and nothing more. And, my phone automatically backs up every night. This was irritating, but I wasn’t concerned. Had I been regularly backing up the data on my MacBook, I wouldn't have had to worry about losing more than a year’s worth of photos, covering the entire lifespan of my daughter, or documents and e-mails that I had stored in no other location. Had I used two-factor authentication for my Google account, it’s possible that none of this would have happened, because their ultimate goal was always to take over my Twitter account and wreak havoc. Getting into Amazon let my hackers get into my Apple ID account, which helped them get into Gmail, which gave them access to Twitter. And worst of all, my AppleID account was broken into, and my hackers used it to remotely erase all of the data on my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook. ![]() Next my Twitter account was compromised, and used as a platform to broadcast racist and homophobic messages. First my Google account was taken over, then deleted. In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed. ![]()
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