Amazon recently made headlines after an “impossible recanopia” ransomware attack targeting Awaken Web Services users. The iPhone 16 also received a security cover after studies managed to hack the popular cell phone’s new USB-C port. Now, the iPhone 16 is in the spotlight again as an alleged hacking attack around the smartphone is said to affect visitors to Amazon’s visitor service. This is what you want to know.
First, I don’t forget to hear about Amazon’s iPhone 16 hacking attack about 3 months ago, when Reddit users complained about getting calls from what purported to be Amazon’s visitor service to check if an order for the smartphone was correct. Meanwhile, hacking attacks have continued, involving an iPhone 16 order, coming from what appears to be Amazon’s visitor service. A troubling new twist was reported following a TikTok video of a victim claiming that their Amazon account was indeed hacked using this method.
The attack began with a phone call from Amazon’s guest service, suggesting that their account had been compromised and that urgent action needed to be taken to fix it. The victim became suspicious and reported it, but the caller indicated that the evidence was in their Amazon account: Check your cart to see if there is an order for an iPhone 16, they were told. They did that and there was nothing there. The so-called Amazon representative asked them to upgrade their display and lo and behold, there was not only one order but also a total of 8 iPhone 16 smartphones in the cart. This was enough to convince the user that the account needed to be closed without delay to prevent the fraud from occurring. They were told this involved a one-time code that would be sent to them via SMS. Click this code, then log out of your Amazon account, according to the given commands. Of course, this gave the attacker control of the account, assuming they already had access to the visitor’s username and password.
To be honest, many loose ends need to be tied off regarding this latest incident, as reported. Not least the method used to add the iPhones to the customer basket, or at least give that appearance. Also, to use the one-time code trick, those account details would already need to be known, which would suggest a compromise elsewhere and shared credentials being used. Whatever, at this stage, I think it’s still worth considering this a threat and being aware that Amazon customer services will not call you, nor will they enquire if your order is correct or offer to send you a one-time code by text message.
I contacted Amazon for a statement.
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