Safeguard Your iTunes Account

A developer who apparently used fraudulent purchases to make his products skyrocket up the App Store best-seller lists has gotten the heave-ho from Apple. This incident underscores the importance of using good password practices when shopping online. In early July, offerings from developer Thuat Nugyen claimed more than 40 of the 50 slots for top-selling apps in the Books category—a curious development considering that the apps had few user reviews. Other developers alerted Apple, which quickly removed the apps “for violating the developer Program License Agreement, including fraudulent purchase patterns,” according to a statement released by the company. All told, fraudulent purchases of Nguyen’s apps were made from around 400 iTunes accounts, according to Apple. “The iTunes servers were not compromised,” Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller said. Apple has tightened App Store security, asking app buyers for the credit card code verification number—typically a three-digit number on the back of the card. But users can take preventative steps of their own. review your Purchases To make sure the apps you’ve been charged for are ones you’ve actually bought, access the Apple Account Information page from iTunes by clicking on your account name on the right side of iTunes’ menu bar. From there, you can see your purchase history. Change your Password You can change your password from within iTunes by clicking Edit Account Info. Dates, words, or simple strings like “1234” aren’t much of a safeguard. Long passwords containing numbers and special characters are harder to crack.