Some top iPhone apps that had received top rankings, reports to have disappeared from the top 50 book applications. Yes, according to fresh reports, a group of apps goes missing following complaints from developers. But the interesting part is that it appears some iTunes customer accounts have been hacked and that funds from those accounts may have been used to purchase apps in the iTunes App Store. Are you one of them?
The confusion started when some of the best rated apps of iTunes Store went missing. The incident then coincided with reports that iTunes Store users were charged for applications they say they did not purchase, suggesting that their accounts may have been compromised. I guess, Apple for security purpose, have then decided to delete some of its apps.
The developers noted that they noticed dozens of applications by the same author surge into the top rankings, although the applications frequently had few or no user reviews and appeared to be roughly coded. Of the top 50 book applications, about 41 were roughly coded applications that appeared to be Vietnamese but were not localized. Even many of the applications were similar and had no user reviews despite being listed as top paid ones.
Blog TNW Apple reported that the phenomenon appeared to extend beyond apps by one developer, and that it seemed to be international in scope. It also ran excerpts from several posts to the MacRumors: Forums Web site. “Yesterday my credit union contacted me saying there was suspicious activity on my debit card.” TNW Apple quoted one post as saying. “Sure enough over 10 transactions in the $40-$50 area all on iTunes equaling to $558.”
The issue may have been a problem for Apple for more than two weeks. As far back as June 14, several applications from mycompany were listed as top-grossing ones in the U.S. at App Annie, a company that tracks iPhone applications. At least one of the 40 or so similar applications had comments from reviewers saying their account had been hacked and used to purchase the application.
Apple officials contacted in London avoided commenting on the subject.
Tags: annie, Apple, book applications, customer accounts, iphone apps, itunes, security purpose, store users, suspicious activity, tnw