Meet the Russian-made tool that was used for iCloud hacking

Apple is hoping that if it denies things long enough its low-tech and naive followers will start to believe that its iCloud is safe as houses.

However PC World has discovered that the iCloud is only about as safe as a Palestinian home on the West Bank as there is a thriving business in Russia for software which can knock over Apple’s cloud.

The software tool used for iCloud hack is Moscow-based Elcomsoft’s Phone Password Breaker, or EPPB, one of many forensic tools the company develops for law enforcement and other clients.

It is one of many and Elcomsoft CEO Vladimir Katalov said there are legitimate uses for his company’s software and he insists it does not exploit flaws in Apple services. We guess Apple just has a feature which allows you to steal pictures of naked celebs.

EPPB comes into play after a victim’s Apple ID and password have been compromised by other means. The software can pull text messages, attachments, call logs, address books, calendars, email account settings, photos and other information in a few minutes.

But it means that a hacker could set up a new device and restore it with the victim’s iCloud data. This is probably the software the hackers use after they have cracked the iCloud passwords. It is still not clear how the hackers have managed to do that. Guessing an Apple ID is tricky, but a password is still a brute force operation.

It looks like only photos of the celebrities have been publicly released. But the hackers in control of the accounts could also have text messages, call logs and a host of other data if the victim had chosen to back up the data in iCloud.

Apple has advised that iCloud customers use two-factor authentication as an additional protection, which involves entering a one-time passcode when logging on.