Something unusual was seen on the iTunes App Store, particularly its Book category, where up to 42 of the top 50 books based on revenue were from a seller named Thuat Nguyen. The common elements of these book apps were that most of them were released in April, had little or no customer ratings, appeared to be in Vietnamese (despite claiming it supported English and Japanese), and had several anime characters featured on its thumbnails. What was even stranger was that the website of his company, conveniently named “mycompany,” landed on a parked site www.home.com.
But how did these books reached the top of the charts in the first place. Some users reported that their iTunes accounts appear to have bought these books, which amount to hundreds of dollars, without their knowledge. In other words: their accounts were hacked.
Apple has since taken action by banning all the “mycompany” titles and has advised users to contact their banks and cancel their credit cards if unauthorized transactions were detected or their accounts were compromised. They also recommend users to change their iTunes password.
However, Apple has yet to admit that something was wrong, saying that it only affected a handful of users.
Source: Engadget
