AT&T this Wednesday approved a security hole by which around 100,000 emails of Apple users were exposed via iPad. This vulnerability will affected only those users who had signed up for the 3G Wireless Internet Service of AT&T. The procedure used by AT&T site for the users login their AT&T accounts includes a insecure way which has cuase this security breach. The AT&T site ask the Apple iPad users to provide their email id to login their account and the same is email id is supplied in the form of unique codes to the SIM card which is used in iPad. This enables the tell phone network company to identify the user who is trying to use the service.
A hacker called called as Goatse Security claimed that they have find out a way by which this weakness can provide them all the email ids. They can trick the AT&T site and are able to collect more than 114,000 e-mail addresses which includes some vital email addresses of media people and government officials. A representative of the backers group approached Thee Associated Press this Wednesday and contacted AT&T till the security hole is fixed before giving out information. AT&T on the same hand said that it is fixed this Tuesday and but the same was alerted to them by their business customer. AT&T said that the users who’s email ids are expsed will be notified by them. The company also stated that they are now going to take some serious action on customer privacy. AT&T has apologized for the issue.
AT&T also stated that the information which the hackers got is the email addresses. But this is quiet dangeriou were the hackers can trick the iPAd users and capture vital information receving on the mail accounts. They can even plant malicious software on the users computer. The hackers can capture the users of iPad and AT&T and can trick by sending mails from Apple and AT&T. So that can be risky for the users. Apple has already sold around 2 million iPads. There are differnet version of iPad some have internet connection support via wi-fi. Other can use the AT&T’s 3G cellular network. The wi-fi models of iPad are not subjected to this security breach.
each model it has sold.