A major Chinese website has listed thousands of iTunes accounts for sale. It is believed that these are all hacked accounts.
There are around 50,000 accounts, all linked to stolen credit cards, that are listed on the Chinese equivalent to eBay site called TaoBao. The listing has promises of granting you temporary access to unlimited downloads costing as little as 1 yuan (about $0.06 / 10p) per use. So far Apple has not issued any comment about the situation.
The site goes on to describe that you will have unlimited access for around 12 hours, and you can use it for movies, software, games, music… and after the 12hours the account will probably be shut down. Details of these auctions were brought to light in China’s Global Times, which had a report saying that a seller had admitted they were hacked. “Of course these accounts are hacked, otherwise how could they be so cheap?” they told the newspaper. It is against iTunes terms and conditions to use accounts with false information or of course any stolen accounts.
There have been a few stories emerging about the safety of iTunes accounts in the past and we even saw reports of one man who used stolen credit cards to buy £500,000 worth of music. It was actually his own music he was buying to get the royalties from the songs.
TaoBao has commented about this issue, saying they are not required to remove these listings because there are currently no direct complaints about the sales.
“We take all reasonable and necessary measures to protect the rights of consumers who use Taobao, of our sellers and of third-parties,” the company said in a statement. “Until we receive a valid takedown request, we cannot take action.”
Article Via Slashgear
