Apple issued a statement in the wake of growing concerns surrounding a series of hacking attacks, apparently commited by someone called Oleg Pliss.
A number of iPhone customers reported that they were locked out of their devices - via iCloud - with a message requesting money to be sent to an email address.
Apple's short notice says that it "iCloud was not compromised during this incident. Impacted users should change their Apple ID password as soon as possible and avoid Apple device users from as far as Canada, Australia and the US took to Apple's support communities website and claimed to have been targeted by the attacks.
Going around the world
There are are also unconfirmed reports that the ransomware scheme has hit the UK shores as well according to the thread, which has been read nearly 40,000 times.
"Impacted users should change their Apple ID password as soon as possible and avoid using the same user name and password for multiple services," Apple said in a statement.
"Any users who need additional help can contact AppleCare or visit their local Apple Retail Store."
The only Oleg Pliss we could find currently works for Oracle as a senior software engineer and computer scientist, working primarily on Java, but it is unlikely that it was him.
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