Disable iCloud Now - New Ransomware Scare

Zappit · May 28, 2014

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...demanding-money-for-their-phones-9440189.html

It's hit Australia and parts of Europe, and these Ransomware attacks are starting in North America, too. It works through the Find My iPhone/iPad feature of iCloud. There is no real defense currently save for disabling iCloud and disconnecting your device from it.

Hailey Knight · May 28, 2014

Glad I never enabled it.

Or updated iTunes.

PatrThom · May 28, 2014

Also there's that handy two-factor authentication you can enable.
It has a 3-day waiting period, so the sooner you start, the better.

--Patrick

Zappit · May 28, 2014

Guess everyone in my family is safe, then. I just had my brother delete his iCloud account, and his iTunes info is secure. That was my one concern.

PatrThom · May 28, 2014

Delete the account itself? Or just remove it from the device? There's a difference. Doing the second one just unlinks your device from the acct. Doing the first one unlinks your entire purchase history.

--Patrick

Zappit · May 28, 2014

Just deleted the iCloud account. The purchase history seemed fine. He had only started using it very recently, and everything had been backed up to the iTunes library, anyway. It did not delete his Apple ID.

PatrThom · May 28, 2014

That's the confusion. So many people use the terms interchangeably that it's hard to tell sometimes exactly what happened.

And as a public service announcement, unless you are sure of what you are doing, don't ever, EVER ask Apple to delete your Apple ID. They will. And you can't ever get it back. That means any stored data, any pictures, your entire purchase history of apps/music/whatever...all gone, never to return.

--Patrick

jwhouk · May 29, 2014

Remember: that "whatever" also means any device you ever purchased from Apple while they had it available.

Like laptops, computers, anything.

I didn't like using iCloud, so I don't - only thing I use is iTunes purchases.

Now, I didn't have to do draconian measures, since I own an iPod Touch, but I did add the PIN login (NOT the two-step verification).