Black hat hackers have exploited a security flaw on AT&T’s web servers which enabled them to obtain email addresses from the SIM card addresses of iPad 3G users. (Updated with statement from AT&T)
The breach, profiled in a report by Gawker, described the event as "another embarrassment" for Apple and outlined a variety of high profile individuals whose email addresses were obtained by automated script attacks on AT&T’s web server based on their iPad 3G SIM addresses (ICC ID).
The publication claimed that the identifying information meant that thousands of iPad 3G users "could be vulnerable to spam marketing and malicious hacking," while also pointing out that many users have actually already published their iPad ICC ID numbers in Flickr photos. Presumably, many of them also have public email addresses and therefore already receive spam like the rest of us.
The attack on AT&T’s web servers resulted in at least 114,000 iPad 3G users’ emails being leaked to the hackers, who were coy about wether or not they were planning to enable others to access the data. The security leak, which returned a user’s email address when their ICC-ID was entered via a specially formatted HTTP request, has since been patched.
The group automated requests of the email address information for a wide swath of ICC-ID serial numbers using a script. No other information was discovered.
Read more: AppleInsider.com
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