Several dozens of people in Singapore have reported fraudulent credit card charges by way of their iTunes accounts, TODAY reports.
Banks across Singapore — including DBS Bank, OCBC Bank, United Overseas Bank, Maybank and Standard Chartered Bank — launched investigations when a spate of customers complained they were billed for purchases they had not made from iTunes over the past month. A few of the victims had been charged thousands of dollars in total after crooks made multiple smaller transactions on their cards without them knowing.
OCBC alone detected 58 suspicious transactions, all of which turned out to be fraudulent, according to TODAY.
Apple Singapore informed Channel NewsAsia that they’re looking into the matter, but provided no further details. Affected Apple user Deepan Chakkaravarthi took to Facebook to rant about the tech giant’s customer service.
Apple Singapore has since nullified the fraudulent purchases made under his account, Deepan told CNA.
Experts say online scammers may have gotten ahold of users’ personal information, such as account numbers and passwords, through a variety of means, The New Paper reported.
Two techniques are particularly popular. One method, known as phishing, involves tricking users into entering their private information into fake websites that appear to be legit. In the other, internet thieves purchase bulk data from hackers (typically operating on the dark web) who filched the information from other sources. After that, hijacking your iTunes account is a piece of cake.
“The fraudsters now have enough of the victim’s credit card details to enter those payment details into their own or a fake iTunes account and charge purchases up to the victim’s credit card limit,” Nick FitzGerald, a senior research fellow at cyber-security company ESET told The New Paper.
Thankfully, some victims were able to reverse the charges with the help of their banks.
“Upon confirmation that these were fraudulent transactions, we deployed the necessary counter-measures and are currently assisting the affected cardholders via the chargeback process,” Vincent Tan, OCBC’s head of credit cards told The New Paper.
Apple is also looking into the scam and is advising customers to visit their security support page if they are concerned about suspicious activity on their accounts.
