Hackers Steal Alipay Customers’ Money Via Stolen Apple IDs

Alipay, the mobile payment app, said Wednesday (October 10) that hackers stole money from accounts via stolen Apple IDs.

Reuters, citing Ant Financial, the payment affiliate of Alibaba, reported the Chinese company said the issue hasn’t been resolved even though it reached out to Apple already. In a post on its Toutiao social media account, Reuters reported it said users who linked their accounts via Apple IDs should lower their transaction limits. “Alipay has contacted Apple many times … and the issue has not been resolved,” the post said.

According to the report, the breach is impacting Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat users, with some losing as much as $288. It’s not clear how many users were impacted, but Alipay did urge people impacted to contact Apple. Reuters noted the breach shines a light on the security challenges payment companies in China face. In July Apple was signaled out by state media in the country because of all the spam on iMessage. State media at the time said Apple’s stance on privacy was hurting its ability to stop illegal behavior, reported Reuters. The report noted that since then Apple has held talks with the telecommunications companies in China to reduce how much spam gets sent to iMessage. WeChatPay and Alipay have not been the subject of breachers even though users are constantly warned not to send money to people they don’t know that are using the platforms, reported Reuters.

In September Eric Jing, Ant Financial’s executive chairman and CEO, revealed that Alipay now has over 700 million annual active users — an increase of more than 200 million year on year. Jing made the comments at Alibaba’s 2018 Investor Day, where he gave a presentation on the company’s various technology capabilities. He explained that Ant Financial is focused on developing industry leading, financial-grade technologies in blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), security, Internet of Things (IoT) and computing (BASIC). In addition, AlipayHK and GCash launched a global cross-border remittance service this summer, based on the company’s proprietary blockchain technology.