Apple ID verification requests confuse, alarm Vietnamese users

Starting Thursday, several iPhone users in Vietnam have been receiving pop-up messages, requesting them to verify their Apple IDs by entering their passwords in Settings. However, the email address associated with the message is not theirs.

"The message popped up while I was on social media. I saw that it was a strange email address, so I pressed ‘Later.’ I don’t know if that means my phone has been hacked," said Anh Vu from Hanoi.

People have continued reporting the same situation on several online iPhone user groups. Some of them even said that the email addresses displayed belonged to their families and friends.

"I received the message requiring me to verify my Apple ID with an email address belonging to a friend that I have not been in contact with for years. They never signed in to any of my devices," an account named jk391 said.

Following numerous reports about the messages, there have been social media posts warning people that it is a way for hackers to gain access to the devices and steal bank account info.

"If an iPhone suddenly asks you to verify your Apple ID, and the accounts that show up are strange, press either ‘Cancel’ or ‘Later.’ Do not press ‘Settings,’ or you will lose all your data, including your bank accounts," a Facebook fanpage of a phone store posted.

Experts said the "Verify Apple ID" messages are real, but the cybersecurity risks about getting bank accounts stolen are not.

Vu Ngoc Son, technical director of the Vietnam National Cyber Security Technology corporation, said the appearance of the messages coincided with Apple warning iPhone users in 92 countries and territories about a spyware, which raised alarms for many people.

"However, the attacks that Apple warned about have nothing to do with the messages requesting the verification of Apple ID," he said, adding that there have been no recorded attacks in relation to such messages.

A representative of the Anti-Scam project also said information about people’s accounts being stolen due to the messages is untrue. The representative said the reason the messages appear might be due to the users having installed applications that have once been downloaded by another Apple ID. People can simply delete such applications to avoid further confusion.

Apple has yet to give an explanation regarding the strange email addresses displayed on the messages.