Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Facebook Inc (FB) and several other major companies have been attacked by hackers in recent months, and today there are two major leads in the investigations. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) announced on Tuesday that it had been targeted by the same group of hackers which went after Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB).
In addition to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), some of the other major sites that have been hacked in recent months include several media giants like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press. Twitter has also been hacked.
According to Bloomberg, The New York Times was hacked for several months, and the hack involved stealing corporate passwords belonging to employees and spying on the computers of employees. The publication reports that the hackers were able to get into the computers of these major companies through the Java vulnerability.
There has been speculation that China is funding hacker attacks on the U.S. and Europe, but China refuted those claims on Tuesday. Today there are signs that the malware attacks on the websites of major U.S. companies have been linked to a hacker gang in Eastern Europe, which is apparently attempting to steal company secrets.
The hackers seem to have used a site frequented by mobile developers. Users should NOT visit the site in question, but All Things D reports that the site is iPhoneDevSDK. There is a chance that the site could still be compromised by malware, so again, it’s recommended that users stay away from it for the time-being.
The owner and operator of the site, Ian Sefferman, said they are looking into the claims that the site was and possibly is still being used to infect the computers of major companies.
“We’re investigating Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) reports that iPhoneDevSDK was hosting an exploit targeted at Facebook employees,” Sefferman told All Things D. “We’re actively ensuring that is not the case. Facebook originally noted that they immediately reached out to other affected companies, but we were never contacted by Facebook, any other company or law enforcement.”
More than 250,000 Twitter accounts have also been hacked, with many big names like Burger King Worldwide Inc. (NYSE:BKW) and Jeep uncovering hacks this week. There is a possibility that the same issue which caught up Apple and Facebook also affected Twitter users.
If the developer site has been affected, it’s believed that the hackers used what’s called a “watering hole” style attack, which basically means that the hackers target a site many people go to, and then the computers and networks of any company which visits the site are compromised.
