Google's YouTube, Apple's iTunes Temporarily Hacked

Fortune Tech:

Hackers spent the 4th of July adding pop up windows to popular YouTube videos and separately juicing the sales of a Vietnamese developer's books on iTunes.

Read the whole story: Fortune Tech

Comments

[Niet]

09:49 PM on 07/06/2010

So, the RIAA has stooped to hiring hackers now?

[dnb310]

06:12 AM on 07/06/2010

I'm a tech moron.
I fully and freely admit it.
I've owned a bunch of PCs and each and every one has, you know... issues. The iMac I'm on right now runs like a top. If there's a better machine out there show it to me and I'll but it.

When my Mac dies, that is.

[Morgantheaxe]

02:30 AM on 07/06/2010

When are these hackers going to face real jail time? You rob a bank of 20 bucks and do a mandatory 20 to life fed time...no good behavior. You hack a website and cause thousands to millions in damage and ahhh man its just a kids prank misdameanor. Start sending these people to jail for mandatory 20 and this garbage will stop. Its not victimless. Its not funny. It taxes every single wallet out there. These people are criminals period.

[hypnotoad72]

12:30 PM on 07/06/2010

Agreed.

[Niet]

09:50 PM on 07/06/2010

Tell it to the RIAA.

[rainbowblue]

01:45 AM on 07/06/2010

Shouldn't this be simple (though annoying) for those affected. Contact your bank and tell them you're one of the hacked. Fill out an affidavit for credit card fraud and they should get the money credited back to their accounts.

[lockDown]

08:01 PM on 07/05/2010

Glad my iTunes acct is directed to a debit with a low amt. No worries.

[Warren Peace]

07:43 PM on 07/05/2010

@poster1122 Agreed and Fanned!!

[Warren Peace]

05:37 PM on 07/05/2010

Apple claims to be more safe than Microsoft is like me saying I'm less famous and visable then Brad Pitt. While true at the time, it begs to say that Apple is now and has been for a little while as mainstream as microsoft which paints a big target on them.

It absolutely has everything to do with popularity and nothing to do with security.

Analogy: Microsoft is a mansion with all kinds of goodies inside and Apple used to be an project apartment with cockroaches. If you were a "criminal" where is the money at????

[poster1122]

07:27 PM on 07/05/2010

Better analogy: Microsoft is the apartment with bars, deadlocks, etc. located in a high-crime neighborhood. Apple is the house in a small town in Kansas where people feel safe enough to sleep at night with their windows open.

Microsoft is in a sense more "secure" in that it has tons of stuff to keep out would-be robbers, but the Apple folks have a case when they say that they are "safer" because they're simply not in an area where attacks are rampant.

[jsgaetano]

08:31 PM on 07/05/2010

That's funny, because all this time I thought we were all on the same Internet.

[Warren Peace]

05:26 PM on 07/05/2010

Internet fraud prevention 101: set-up and account with a prepaid card or giftcards

[jsgaetano]

04:04 PM on 07/05/2010

Aren't Apple and Google the ones always claiming they are "more secure" than Microsoft?

Ooops. Looks like being secure takes a lot more than just MS bashing.

[EvoMan]

05:37 PM on 07/05/2010

ITunes is probably accessed from more Windows computers than Macs. Since Windows is vulnerable to malware such as keyloggers, there's a high probability of passwords being stolen from someone using a WinBox.

[jsgaetano]

06:34 PM on 07/05/2010

Wow, that's a lot of logical gymnastics. Did you hurt your back there?

[jsgaetano]

06:36 PM on 07/05/2010

BTW, that still doesn't explain why OSX is always the very first to be hacked every year in the "Pwn2own" contest.

Looks like being secure takes a lot more than just MS bashing.

[hypnotoad72]

05:44 PM on 07/05/2010

Apple has, and even in 2009 with those stupid "Mac vs PC" commercials I was arguing how wrong Apple was. (Of course, I made a few comments about Windows 7 during my migration phase last year and half of those I regret...)

[JasonMcl]

03:59 PM on 07/05/2010

What happened on youtube was that people were adding in the old school HTML scrolling banners in the comments and leaving the tags open. Leaving an open tag in a HTML document can cause the rest of the page to fail to display.

Also not terribly surprised to see /b/ behind this, lol.

[curiousasheck]

01:18 PM on 07/05/2010

Ironic we here complaints from business and government that there is a major shortage of people to fill tech security related positions isn't it?

[poster1122]

04:01 PM on 07/05/2010

Why is it ironic? There is a massive shortage.

The problem is that most exploits are due to fairly common programming errors. These errors are not typically tied to any particular platform. They're things like poor input filtering, failure to notice race conditions, buffer overruns, poor authentication methodologies, poor encryption algorithms, etc, etc.

Most companies write software with a goal of getting to market as soon as possible. Security is more often than not tacked on at the end to meet some line item requirement and is not part of the core function of the application.

The pool of security experts is relatively small compared to the pool of software developers in general. This results in a lot undefended territory out there, and things are only as "manageable" as they are now because the pool of hackers is relatively small (again, compared to the number applications out there and the number of users in the world)--like having a coastline full of undefended towns but only one or two viking ships conducting raids.

[Mydian01]

01:14 PM on 07/05/2010

"apple will get hacked eventually.. just you wait" and wait and wait.. and suddenly, as predicted.. itunes gets koerean literature hack.. OMGZ.. DOOM!!

[jsgaetano]

04:06 PM on 07/05/2010

The fact that jailbreaking even works proves the iPhone isn't secure.

And who has to "wait" for Apple to get hacked? It's the first one to get hacked every year at the "Pwn2own" contest.

[hypnotoad72]

05:45 PM on 07/05/2010

Very true.

I should re-jailbreak mine and get the firewall re-installed; but I might revert to a no-frills phone when my contract is up for renewal...

[Mydian01]

12:57 PM on 07/06/2010

perhaps, but all they do is hold down 4 keys and boot past the kernal to a debug interface.. nothing is compromised.. but i did a quick google and found this.. the 10 worst viruses, none of them seemed to affect apple.. http://www.pcworld.com/article/103992/the_worlds_worst_viruses.html

so let me get this strait.. hackers might be able to see my photos.. but its ok if they destroy the computer infrastructure of banks, hospitals, payroll, ect, as long as someone can "pwn2own" with a key combo bypass..

again.. you fanatics and your lack of perspective or priority.

[Erumisato]

11:11 AM on 07/05/2010

a good day for anon. 3.5 out of 5 internets!

[esquilax]

08:25 AM on 07/05/2010

Can we have OS/9 and OpenVMS back please.....

[lilchas]

02:08 PM on 07/05/2010

But the Mac OS uses BSD Unix--old and works fine

[BruntLIVE]

07:14 AM on 07/05/2010

Open-Source --- The losers of America

[Lordcron]

07:36 AM on 07/05/2010

A lot of important stuff came out of the Open Source community. Like a lot of the tech used in the modern cell phones all came from and started in the Open Source community first. Research it.