Reuters reports that Apple has announced, in "an unprecedented admission of a widespread cyber-security breach," that its network was attacked by the same hackers who targeted Facebook. "No data appeared to have been stolen." Facebook disclosed on Friday that hackers traced to China "staged a sophisticated attack by infiltrating its employees' laptops, but no user information was compromised."

  • theophrastvs

    ..and cue China’s response:  you lie! we did no such thing!  and besides, you do it too.

    (the latter being true. maybe. probably.)

    • Cowicide

      definitely.

      • Nash Rambler

        Does this mean the US is hacking China less, or better?  Because we must be snooping in their stuff too, I’m just wondering where all the accusations from China are?  Oh well, I suppose I won’t have to look too hard, will I.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      You forgot the part about how we “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.”

  • Cowicide

    This and other highly publicized hacks seem to be happening almost as if it was all on cue. No data is stolen, but they are getting compromised.  /tinfoil hat

    • That_Anonymous_Coward

      but but we need to stop these evil cyberwar attacks…  we need to declare war on cyberattacks…
      it worked against drugs and terror…

      • http://twitter.com/Beryllium9 Beryllium9

        The MTV twitter account was just hacked. Shit just got real.

        Looks like Gizmodo is on it, too. http://gizmodo.com/5985353/exclusive-the-burger-king-and-jeep-hacker-is-probably-this-dj-from-new-england

    • http://twitter.com/puppetdark puppethead

      Yes, right on the heels of the Dept. of Defense saying they need to hire thousands of “cyber warriors” to fight the Great Data Menace or something.

      Sure seems like the Military-Industrial Complex is in the process of shifting from bullets and bombs to bytes and buffers.

  • Hegelian

    “no user information was compromised.”

    …as Chinese hackers quickly realized that they could access Users compromising data by simply using the Facebook Social Graph search feature…

  • timquinn

    The hack is coming FROM INSIDE YOUR OWN COMPUTER!!!!1!!1

  • http://twitter.com/Beryllium9 Beryllium9

    Apparently the system ate my other comment. Anyway.

    The uptick in hacking incidents in December and January spurred me to create a ranking system for cyber attack severity. For example, I rated the Facebook incident as a “Level 2 Attack” on a scale that goes up to Level 7 (“Skynet” :) ). Because this Apple incident is related to the Facebook one, it seems to show a degree of coordination, so I’ve actually rated it as a “Level 3″ attack – the same level as the Bit9 penetration and the Federal Reserve data heist. I am amused by Cowicide and That_Anonymous_Coward’s suggestion that it’s a false flag operation to ramrod a bill through Congress, but stranger things have happened.

    By way of contrast, I rated the Burger King and Jeep twitter account hacks as mere Level One “Events”.

    I’ve open-sourced the overview (“the rules”) on my Github account, as well, so I’m hoping that it can be collaboratively refined into a firm methodology for classifying these attacks.

    • Cowicide

      I am amused by Cowicide and That_Anonymous_Coward’s suggestion that it’s a false flag operation to ramrod a bill through Congress, but stranger things have happened.

      Indeed, there has been.

      [cow jumps back into lead bunker]

    • That_Anonymous_Coward

      What was your rating of the “Russian CyberAttack” on that valve in the water treatment plant that was used to cause all kinds of hysteria in the public about hackers destroying things in the real world from cyberspace.
      They can destroy our water supply…

      or we could actually investigate and discover it was the contractor accessing the system to fix something they asked him to fix.

      Paypal told the world the hackers never touched them, in the complaints used to arrest the skiddies it was a massive attack that costed them kajillions of dollars.

      Sony claimed their network was secure, over and over and over and over and over… well we know how that worked out.

      Corporations ALWAYS NOTORIOUSLY deny any problems, and now you have a long series of open and honest communication.  That seems about as likely as FB introducing a clear, concise, easily accessible privacy control panel.

      While there might be actual hacking by the “bad guys” going on out there, the timing of the incidents with pending bills is to be suspect.  Remember the leaders always want to suggest terrorism at the first time of a problem.

      And let us not forget in the digital pearl harbor level of events… we fired first and now are bitching about others are doing the same to us.

      • http://twitter.com/Beryllium9 Beryllium9

        It’s still a work in progress. I might have time one day to go back and rank such classic attacks as the ones you’ve mentioned.

        Not to mention the original allegations against Kevin Mitnick. *whistles*

  • Sarah Smith

    Where is McCain when we need him?