The other day I told you that many people who had accounts in the iTunes AppStore found themselves with hundreds of dollars in bank transactions on their credit cards, all made on the iTunes Appstore for the purchase of applications or books. Behind this story is a developer from Vietnam named Thuat Nguyen who hacked several hundred iTunes accounts but also compromised the Apple servers that store the information of the Books category in the AppStore.
Today, Apple issued a press release declaring that all the Vietnamese developer's books were deleted from the AppStore for violating the iTunes regulations, but it does not comment on the changes in the names of applications or icons in the AppStore. At the same time, Apple recommends the damaged customers to contact their banks to block the transactions and ask for the money back, without making any allusion to a possible help from Apple.
In short, Apple denies that it had problems and blames everything on hacked accounts, leaving users "with a swollen lip".
The developer Thuat Nguyen and his apps were removed from the App Store for violating the developer Program License Agreement, including fraudulent purchase patterns.
Developers do not receive any iTunes confidential customer data when an app is downloaded.
If your credit card or iTunes password is stolen and used on iTunes, we recommend that you contact your financial institution and inquire about canceling the card and issuing a chargeback for any unauthorized transactions. We also recommend that you change your iTunes account password immediately. For more information on best practices for password security visit http://www.apple.com/support/itunes.
