A rogue Vietnamese developer, Thuat Ngyugen, has reportedly hacked into Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes accounts and gamed the “Books” category of the App Store in an effort to artificially inflate the ratings and sales for his book applications. PC World, The Next Web and Engadget reported on Sunday that Nguyan’s apps accounted for 42 of the top 50 books by revenue in the “books” section of the App Store.
A number of forum posters on apple fan sites, such as Mac Rumors, have reported seeing suspicious charges of anywhere between $200 and $500.00. The suspicious rise in the rankings of Ngyugen’s apps were noticed by a number of competing iPhone developers, including Alex Brie and Patrick Thomson, who were alarmed that their apps slipping in rankings in favor of those developed by Nguyen.
Apple has not made an official statement regarding the alleged hacks of the App Store, but Nguyen’s apps have now disappeared from the App Store. Developer Alex Brie noted no his blog that he reported the issue to Apple and received a response that a team was investigating the issue.
Apple will likely refund the fraudulent purchases that Ngyugen made with compromised accounts, but it’s important to keep your iTunes account information safe. Using weak passwords and accidentally giving your information away to phishing sites is a one-way ticket to having your iTunes account compromised. Make sure to use a long password on your account and keep an eye on your previous purchases from the iTunes store to check for any suspicious purchases on a regular basis. If you see any purchases that you didn’t make, contact Apple and your bank as soon as possible to dispute the charge.
