Cape Town - Apple users in Australia have had their iPads locked and held to ransom.
According to a Cnet report, iPads mysteriously locked themselves and displayed a message demanding payment on the screen.
This may be an expansion of a scam popular in eastern European countries three years ago where cyber criminals infected PCs with malware and demanded a ransom payment to unlock the devices.
Business users were threatened that the machines would be wiped of all data and had to pay up €500.
Australian mobile operators said that they have not received any formal complaints, but a number of users complained on social media platforms.
An international security report found that people may be in part to blame for cyber security lapses because they use simple passwords and click on malware links sent via e-mail spam.
The Trustwave Global Security Report found that the most common password was "123456", followed by "123456789", "1234" and "password".
"For me the most scary part of that is that '123456' becomes the password not only in your corporate environment, but it becomes our password in multiple sites. These people tend to want to only remember one password and use that password across their entire personal landscape, including their corporate environment," Andrew Kirkland, Trustwave regional director for Africa told News24.
According to a Cnet report, iPads mysteriously locked themselves and displayed a message demanding payment on the screen.
This may be an expansion of a scam popular in eastern European countries three years ago where cyber criminals infected PCs with malware and demanded a ransom payment to unlock the devices.
Business users were threatened that the machines would be wiped of all data and had to pay up €500.
Australian mobile operators said that they have not received any formal complaints, but a number of users complained on social media platforms.
An international security report found that people may be in part to blame for cyber security lapses because they use simple passwords and click on malware links sent via e-mail spam.
The Trustwave Global Security Report found that the most common password was "123456", followed by "123456789", "1234" and "password".
"For me the most scary part of that is that '123456' becomes the password not only in your corporate environment, but it becomes our password in multiple sites. These people tend to want to only remember one password and use that password across their entire personal landscape, including their corporate environment," Andrew Kirkland, Trustwave regional director for Africa told News24.
