This weekend, Wired writer Mat Honan became the victim of a massive hack. Two hackers took hold of Honan's electronic identity and infiltrated his accounts on Apple, Amazon, Google, and Twitter, deleting data and memories as they leapfrogged from one account to the next. "In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed," Honan wrote in a blog post explaining what happened. Honan's subsequent research and volley of calls with the companies' help desks threw up some glaring security gaps in the security policies the companies had in place, and Wired has since been tracking their response.
Over the last 24 hours, Amazon and Apple seem to have both tweaked their security policies to prevent a similar hack being repeated. Amazon no longer allows people to call in to change account details like emails or passwords, the Wired writers found after trying to replicate the Honan hack. Apple has also halted ID resets over the phone for 24 hours, an employee told the Wired crew. However, neither company has made an official statement about the steps they are taking.
Update: Apple has confirmed to Wired that the ability to change passwords to your AppleID over the phone has been disabled for the time being.
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