Epic Hacking Research Paper
How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to The Epic Hacking of Mat Honan
Meet Mat Honan. He just had his digital life dissolved by hackers. On Friday Aug.3.2012 Mat Honan’s personal Computer (PC) system was invaded by hackers. In the space of one hour, Mat’s entire digital life was destroyed. First his google account was taken over, then deleted. Next his twitter account was compromised, and used as a platform to broadcast racist and homophobic messages. And worst of all, Honan’s Apple ID account was broken into, and his hackers used it to remotely erase all of the data on his IPhone, IPad, and MacBook.
Had he been regularly backing up the data on his MacBook, he wouldn’t have had to worry about losing more than a year’s worth of photos, covering the entire lifespan of his daughter, or documents …show more content…
i just liked your username like I said before” he told Mat via Twitter Direct Message.
After coming across Mat’s account, the hackers did some background research. His Twitter account linked to his personal website, where they found his Gmail address. Guessing that this was also the e-mail address he used for Twitter, Phobia went to Google’s account recovery page. He didn’t even have to actually attempt a recovery. This was just a recon mission.
Because Mat didn’t have Google’s two-factor authentication turned on, when Phobia entered his Gmail address, he could view the alternate e-mail Mat had set up for account recovery. Google partially obscures that information, starring out many characters, but there were enough characters available, m••••n@me.com. Jackpot.
This was how the hack progressed. If Mat had some other account aside from an Apple e-mail address, or had used two-factor authentication for Gmail, everything would have stopped here. But using that Apple-run me.com e-mail account as a backup meant he told the hacker he had an AppleID account, which meant he was vulnerable to being
Meet Mat Honan. He just had his digital life dissolved by hackers. On Friday Aug.3.2012 Mat Honan’s personal Computer (PC) system was invaded by hackers. In the space of one hour, Mat’s entire digital life was destroyed. First his google account was taken over, then deleted. Next his twitter account was compromised, and used as a platform to broadcast racist and homophobic messages. And worst of all, Honan’s Apple ID account was broken into, and his hackers used it to remotely erase all of the data on his IPhone, IPad, and MacBook.
Had he been regularly backing up the data on his MacBook, he wouldn’t have had to worry about losing more than a year’s worth of photos, covering the entire lifespan of his daughter, or documents …show more content…
i just liked your username like I said before” he told Mat via Twitter Direct Message.
After coming across Mat’s account, the hackers did some background research. His Twitter account linked to his personal website, where they found his Gmail address. Guessing that this was also the e-mail address he used for Twitter, Phobia went to Google’s account recovery page. He didn’t even have to actually attempt a recovery. This was just a recon mission.
Because Mat didn’t have Google’s two-factor authentication turned on, when Phobia entered his Gmail address, he could view the alternate e-mail Mat had set up for account recovery. Google partially obscures that information, starring out many characters, but there were enough characters available, m••••n@me.com. Jackpot.
This was how the hack progressed. If Mat had some other account aside from an Apple e-mail address, or had used two-factor authentication for Gmail, everything would have stopped here. But using that Apple-run me.com e-mail account as a backup meant he told the hacker he had an AppleID account, which meant he was vulnerable to being