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"Dialog boxes asking for passwords are a very popular social engineering tactic designed to trick users into giving attackers their passwords" Apple is extreme
by inopinatus 9y ago
"Dialog boxes asking for passwords are a very popular social engineering tactic designed to trick users into giving attackers their passwords"
Apple is extremely guilty of normalizing the frequent entry of passwords. I recently reinstalled a Mac and an iPad, and for each device I must've entered my Apple ID password seven or eight times. in the normal course of getting things done I then enter either this, or my local login password, many times a week.
When your password is twenty characters of line noise or an extended passphrase this is thoroughly irksome, especially on virtual keyboards like the iPad. It is no surprise to me that less security conscious folks, faced with this onslaught of excessive credential demand, choose shorter i.e. easily cracked passwords; and no surprise that everyone becomes less suspicious of the sham password dialog.
So when reading of yet another photographic burglary from a cracked iCloud account, we should always lay part of the blame at Apple's feet, for systematically normalizing the frequent entry of credentials.
That is not the end of Apple's social engineering enablement shame. Another glaring blunder is in Apple Mail, where the "To:" field is shown with your real name, even when the sender did not include this. The humans respond positively to the use of their given name, so this heightens the verisimilitude of scam messages.
- peckrob 9y agoYup. My Apple password is one of the very few remaining ones that isn't a random string generated by 1Password because Apple makes me enter it all the time. :(
- Mtinie 9y ago"For your protection". I agree, the number of times per week that I somehow end up entering my Apple ID password is egregious. Couple that with the abysmal iCloud/Apple ID/iPhone number conflicts that inevitably show up when you have more than one device. I've spent more hours than I care to remember working on my parents' devices fixing glitchy synchs.
- jasonmp85 9y agoFWIW I use 1pw's diceware generator for any password I might have to enter on iOS, Roku, PS4, etc. Much easier to remember when looking from screen to screen and fewer keyboard shifts.
- yborg 9y agoYou people are doing something seriously wrong. About the only time I need to enter iCloud credentials is when I reboot my system, which is maybe once a month, or buy something. Complaining about credential entry on a new device install in this context is also kind of irrelevant, this malware doesn't strike during a new OS update.
- vbezhenar 9y agoI'm not sure why you've got downvoted, but I can confirm, that I'm using Macbook, iPhone, iPad and I very rarely have to enter iCloud password. I don't even remember last time I did it. I'm not reinstalling stuff or whatever, usually I'm working with programs I'm using and only password I'm constantly typing is password from locked computer or pincode for phone (and even those could be eliminated with modern touch buttons, I think).
- inopinatus 9y agoRegarding the downvotes; I suspect it was the holier-than-thou tone delivering a blinkered refusal to accept someone else's reported experience, all prefaced by a cheap sneer. I generally find that this forum has a higher than usual tolerance for unconventional perspectives, but takes a very dim view of poor manners. Unlike other places that seem to reward and even celebrate bad behaviour and low standards of discussion. This is a major reason I contribute here and basically nowhere else.
- somecallitblues 9y agoIt's the anti Apple sentiment on HN. Nothing Apple is good anymore. But yeah, I can't remember either the last time I had to enter the iCloud password.
- smackfu 9y agoI've had almost all of my Apple devices at some time or another just randomly pop up a "please sign into your Apple ID" dialog in the middle of some other work. I think it's probably related to update checking? But it's definitely something Apple is responsible forZ
- behnamoh 9y agoYes. Actually, there was a malware in iOS that displayed "Please Enter Password of Your Email..." and many users were trapped in that ruse. It must still be active on my iPad, because often times, I get that message to enter my email password while Email app is working well.