Apple Website Hacked

Apple developers' website has just being hacked.  This was reported by Apple to its developers on Thursday.

Apparently Apple believes that even though developers information and credentials are encrypted, it is also possible for the attacker to have gotten his or her hands on some information.

However, Apple noted that immediately this compromise was detected, the website was taken down. 

Apple had this to say to her developers.

"Last Thursday, an intruder attempted to secure personal information of our registered developers from our developer website. Sensitive personal information was encrypted and cannot be accessed, however, we have not been able to rule out the possibility that some developers’ names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed. In the spirit of transparency, we want to inform you of the issue. We took the site down immediately on Thursday and have been working around the clock since then.

In order to prevent a security threat like this from happening again, we’re completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database. We apologize for the significant inconvenience that our downtime has caused you and we expect to have the developer website up again soon."

Of course Apple is generally considered to have advanced security around all it offers which is one of the reasons some people choose Apple products over others.  If an attacker was able to gain access to Apple's website, it means that this attacker is super good and can be looking into having access to Apple App Store credentials which  contains credit card information of customers.

Apple would definitely have to do all it can do to avoid any future compromise.  Last thing Apple wants is for her products and services to be perceived vulnerable to hack attack.

How To Increase Your Google Account Security

We are in that age and era where cyber crime and account hijacking are on the increase. 
So many a people have fallen prey to these attacks due to little knowledge on how to securely increase the security of their online accounts.

A lot of people use more than 3 Google products ranging from Gmail, YouTube, Google+, Google Doc, Picasa and Google Wallet on a daily basis and these accounts are connected to online applications and websites.
Invariably, if someone gets control of your Google password either directly or from other websites/applications, almost all Google services one uses becomes compromised: that would be a disaster.
This post is to help Google account users to further increase security on said accounts and provide at least a greater level of account security than the uninformed individual. Although Google tries as much as possible to secure accounts of its users, still a little extra fortifying is better and won't hurt.

Requirements
1. You have a Google account

2. You have authorised access to this account

Procedures
1. In your browser, log in to www.google.com. If you are doing this on a mobile device, scroll down and click Classic to switch to the desktop format.

2. Tap or click on on your name close to your avatar on the top-right corner of the Window.

3. Click Accounts and then click on Security at the left hand side of the opened page.

4. Scroll down to where you have Notification Types and check the boxes under Phone. Enter your personal phone number when presented with the page and confirm the number with the code that would be sent to your phone.
This will allow Google to notify you of any suspicious activity on your account by phone. Immediately you can quickly proceed to rectify the bridge

5. Next, scroll down to connected Applications and Sites. Click on manage access.

6. Manage access of website and applications you have allowed to access your Google account by clicking on Revoke access. Once you do this, these applications/website will no longer have unrestricted access to your account. Choose wisely.  

7. When done, go back to the previous page and click on Profile and Privacy at the left side of the page.

8. Click Public Profile Information. Let it load the page completely until you see a page shown below. Here you would able to change who sees some of your Basic information and who doesn't. This would give hackers less access to information they can use to hack into your account.  
There are different information that can be altered in this page, so take time to study each information page and alter as you desire.

9. Also, it is best that you don't use your Google account password on any other website or applications.

10. Once done, scroll down and click Save. Scroll up, at the right hand side of the page and change view profile as Yourself to view profile as Public. This will give you a view of what other people see when they check your page. you can always change back the view options.

I hope you find this post helpful. Drop your comments if you feel I should add more tips and details.