14 DAY TRIAL // The Register is reporting that CardCops, a credit card protection service owned by the Affinion Group, has spotted sensitive information belonging to several hundred people with Mac.com accounts being "traded in underground forums frequented by identity thieves".
According to the source, .Mac users handed over their personal information with little thought that it wasn't Apple asking them to cooperate in the process involving the switch to MobileMe. As most of you probably already know, MobileMe has had quite a glitchy debut, confusing a lot of Mac owners and .Mac users. This provided the perfect "setting" for phishers to unravel their nasty workarounds to get .Mac users' social security numbers, birth dates, mothers' maiden names, credit card numbers "and other sensitive information," the report reveals.
The scams bore subjects such as "Billing problem," says the publication. "Following the link as recently as Tuesday while using Apple's Safari browser, we were taken to an authentic-looking page purporting to belong to Apple," the report reads. "It asked users to reinstate their accounts by entering a dizzying array of personal details." The Reg notes on that, "interestingly, while Internet Explorer warned [...] the page was a scam, neither Safari nor Firefox flagged it".
It is not the first time Safari is involved in phishing scams, and it certainly isn't the first time MobileMe disappoints. Following news saying a .Mac phishing email was doing the rounds last months, one of our users wrote:
"THANK YOU APPLE!!!!! Because of this NEW 'ME' not only have I not had mails for five days now, I am told I am out-of-luck because my MAC OSX system is Panther - 10.3.9 and need to buy an update. I already pay the yearly membership. Talk about being left out!! My homepage is also floating out there somewhere."
Apple is yet to respond to the allegations regarding MobileMe involved in phishing scams.