Apple Gets It Up for Counterfeiting

John Theriault, formerly of the FBI and Pfizer's counterfeit-busting division, has been hired by Apple. The recent wave of fake Apple stores appearing in China (23 so far) has prompted Steve Jobs and Apple to crackdown on the clones. As Apple's global security chief, Theriault, Champion of Legitimate Viagra, outlined a plan in 2008 to eradicate the issue.

Why mention this on a security blog? Well, such fake stores sell equally fake hardware, which is indistinguishable from the real thing in appearance. Besides using inferior internal parts the clones can potentially contain pre-installed malicious software. That software puts user data at risk.

As always, we recommend strong authentication such as challenge-response and transaction data signing.