A hacker group based in London names itself as “Turkish Crime Family” has recently claimed to have hacked into about 250 million Apple iCloud accounts and if that is true, that is huge number and the bigger problem is not just the vulnerability for your account information to go out, but also for the data to be into unsafe hands and the group is demanding ransom for so as to do nothing wrong.
But, when a hacker can get into your account and go to an extent to demand ransom, can you trust them to do nothing after that? It is better that you exercise some important steps that ensure that your Apple iCloud account is safe and protected from hackers in the future.
Read: How to enable or disable iCloud Drive
Backup your Data that is vulnerable
It is ironical to read this because your iCloud account is specifically for backing up your iPhone data, but here, we are asking you to backup the data into another source as well. Who knows, at some point, the iCloud data could disappear. An easy and reliable way is the iTunes backup.
It is the local backup to your computer so it is safer. To do so, connect your device to the Windows or Mac PC and then open iTunes. Open the device menu in the iTunes and then, you will find the Summary on the left column.
Here, select Backups. There will be two ways to get the backup done. Either Automatic backup, or the Manual backup. If you choose Automatic, whenever the device is connected to the PC and iTunes is opened, the backup starts automatically.
One of the drawbacks for this method is that things are in sync with iCloud, so not everything will be backed up. But for whatever you can save, perform a manual backup once a week.
Read: Recover forgotten Mac password
Change and have a secured password
Apple hasn’t been proactive with the change of passwords, because unlike the other services, it should have already asked the users to change their account password if it is compromised as well.
But, if you are worried about your data getting leaked, you should change the password of your iCloud account. That is the same as your Apple account, and you will have to reset it. To do that, go to appleid.apple.com where you will be asked to login to the Apple account. Enter your account ID and password and then, you can reset the password there.
We know that using an easy password is easier for you to remember it and not have to worry about resetting it later if you forgot about it, but here, the easier passwords are the easiest to crack for anyone, especially the hackers. You need to have a stronger password that not just the alphabets but a combination that has Upper and lower case alphabets, numbers, characters, and it cannot be similar to any of the recent passwords you used for the Apple account.
Additional step – Two-factor Authentication
Two factor authentication is the extra step of security that you can enable if you feel that for your account to be logged into any new device, there should be an extra step, like a verification sent to your phone.
Basically, Apple would send a verification code to your trusted phone number whenever you try to login to your Apple ID on any new unregistered device. Imagine someone getting hold of your account credentials through those hackers’ leaked data, and they trying to login to your account. With the 2FA turned on, you will be safe because the codes are coming to your number and the person cannot fully log in.
We will have a guide setup for you to learn on how to turn on Two-factor authentication for your account and have it activated on your trusted devices, but if you are in a hurry to do that, you will find the option for that in the security section after you login into the Apple account.
For now, these three steps are enough and each of them contribute well to the security of your account, especially when Apple isn’t able to do much and the safety of your account and the data is in your hand.
