Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is once again in news because of its product users in China getting attacked by hackers. According to a report published by a web monitoring group in China, Apple users in the country have been attacked by the hackers who dug their information stored in iCloud. A few days after this incident, Xinhua news agency reported the incident on Wednesday, Tim Cook, Apple’s Chief Executive Officer took notice of this act and discussed user data security with the Chinese top ranked government officials in Beijing.
Apple has been in the news for quite a few things lately. First the buzz created by the release of iPhone 6 & 6 plus. Then the controversy related to the iPhone 6 bending issue and the problems with iOS 8. Apple then became the center of attention because of its new feature Apple Pay and the highly anticipated Apple Watch, which will be coming out sometime next year. Very recently the company launched its latest iPad; however this time it is for something that Apple would have liked to avoid.
This news is quite different than all others and involves security issues in China. A group called, Greatfield.org accused the Chinese government of being involved in the hacking. According to this group the hackers had the consent of the government. However, the Chinese government has strongly denied the accusation and any sort of involvement with the Hackers. What is interesting to note is the fact that Apple has not yet given any statement on the issue; typical Apple behavior. Whether Apple believes the government was involved or not is therefore not clear.
Xinhua covered the meeting that was held on Wednesday in Zhongnanhai and reported that the central government of China along with Apple’s CEO Tim Cook and Ma Kai, the vice premier discussed a strategy to avoid hacking in the future. The three discussed how to protect user’s information and strengthen cooperation and information and communication fields.
According to Greatfield it seems like Apple on Tuesday made changes or edited user data to mislead the Hackers and prevent any harm that the hackers could have caused by using that data.
This incident has once again raised the issue of Apple’s iCloud security strength. Not too long ago hackers had successfully targeted some celebrities’ data on iClouds and were able to get pictures that were later leaked on the internet; funny that Google was the one who had to face lawsuits for the leakage. Apple took a few steps to strengthen its security after the incident, but it seems those steps aren’t enough.
The iCloud data getting attacked in China is obviously a huge concern for the company especially because of its latest payment method Apple Pay, which ensures complete user data security. But now with this latest hack how would Apple Pay users react; only time will tell.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been trying very hard to capture the major portion of the Chinese smartphone market where low-end smartphones and local brands are the leaders. This latest hacking incident could prove to be a hurdle for the tech giant; however hacking incidents have happened in the past and they rarely hurt big companies. Therefore it can be assumed that this incident will be yet another in the list of security issues that get forgotten with time, but if the involvement of Chinese government gets validated then we may have a serious situation.