Chinese state accused of attacking Apple's iCloud

Title: Chinese state accused of attacking Apple's iCloud

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/20/chinese-state-accused-attacking-apple-icloud

Summary:

This article is about iCloud users being the victims of a middle man that is suspected to be run by the Chinese state, especially in cases where there are connections passing in and out the country. The attacks on the users began on the same day of release as the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6plus in China.  The suspected attacker intercepts data that is passed between the user and iCloud.com, Apple’s cloud computing service, by routing all communication between the two through a malicious third party. ICloud.com is known to use the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) internet security protocol so that it can establish a secure connection. In order to get around the SSL, the suspected attacker has used a self-signed certificate, which is enough to trick users of insecure browsers into thinking they’ve accessed the iCloud website through a secure connection. The protocol that is used to secure iCloud is reliant on certificates that are signed by one of a number of trusted authorities to verify that the site being connected to isn’t intercepted by a third party. The attack made use of a self-signed certificate, which claims to be iCloud.com but isn’t supported by a trusted third party. 

Facts/Phrases:

Ø  “This is clearly a malicious attack on Apple in an effort to gain access to usernames and passwords and consequently all data stored on iCloud, such as iMessages, photos, and contacts”, wrote the Chinese internet freedom organisation Great Fire."

Ø  If users ignored the security warning and clicked through to the Apple site and entered their username and password, this information has now been compromised by the Chinese authorities.

Ø  The “great firewall” is a notoriously imprecise censorship tool, frequently blocking sites on a piecemeal basis or allowing access for seemingly random periods of time.

Opinion:

In my opinion, there are two issues that have been highlighted in this article the first being privacy with Apple’s iCloud being in the spotlight yet again as it has been the victim of the attacker (Chinese state), as well as the fact that the iPhone users in China have no privacy whilst using their phones as they are being monitored. The second issue is the Great Firewall of China and how it is used for censorship and consistently blocking site randomly.