Not the first time Apple’s Support Communities board gets hit by spammers

Nov 4, 2013 09:41 GMT  ·  By

Apple Support Communities, the official forum of Cupertino, California-based Apple Inc., is being targeted by spammers. It’s not the first time it’s happened, and Apple has yet to take steps to thwart these unsolicited posts.

If you like to stay on top of everything being discussed in Apple’s forums, chances are you’ve added the feed to your RSS app of choice.

In recent weeks, every now and then, some strange posts will appear next to the usual complaints about iTunes logging users out, issues with email on OS X Mavericks, etc.

Those posts usually carry the title “escort girls,” and they will feature strange characters that are clearly aimed at bypassing Apple’s spam filters.

The Cupertino giant has some tweaking to perform, as this type of spam has been sneaking its way inside Apple’s forums for quite some time now.

At least three new spam threads containing the phone numbers of said “escort” girls popped up this morning in our RSS feed. This seems to have been happening on a daily basis for about a week now.

What’s even more interesting, perhaps, is that the Apple forum is actually suggesting similar threads (with similar contents) to the person viewing the spam (highlighted in the screenshot above).

This is a clear indication that the spammers are taking full advantage of the forum’s algorithms for suggesting related information. It’s also a clear indication that someone at Apple is not at their desk every time this happens.

While this isn’t a cause for panic, Apple should really do something about this matter if it wants customers to trust that the company is on top of every security issue that may threaten their data.

After all, spam is one of the lightest security threats out there. If they can’t contain this, you might ask yourself what else is slipping through the cracks?