MobileMe: Securing your account if it's been compromised

Summary

Your MobileMe username and password allows you to access multiple Apple resources such as me.com, Apple Discussions, iTunes, and the Apple Online Store. It's important to keep your sign-in credentials secure to reduce the chances of your MobileMe account and personal information from being compromised. The following tips will help you reduce the risk of theft or stolen identity and will also guide you through re-securing your account if you think it's been compromised.

Products Affected

MobileMe Account, MobileMe Mail

Apple takes precautions to safeguard your personal information against loss, theft, and misuse, as well as against unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. Apple online services such as the MobileMe web site, Apple Online Store, and iTunes Store use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption on all web pages where personal information is collected.

My account may have been compromised, what do I do?

If you think that your MobileMe account has been compromised, here's what you need to do to help resecure it:

First, try logging in. If you can log in, your password hasn't been changed without your knowledge. Immediately go to appleid.apple.com and reset your password and your security questions.

If you can't log in, go to appleid.apple.com and try resetting your password with your security questions. Trying to reset the password using your alternate email is not advised, as this information may have been changed if your account has been compromised.

If you can't log in and can't answer any of the security questions, contact MobileMe Support.

After you get your account back under your control, check that email forwarding to another email address has not been set up:

Log in to me.com/mail.
From the Actions (gear icon) menu, choose Preferences.
Under General > Forwarding, the field beside "Forward my email to" should be blank or contain an email address that you previously specified for forwarding.
Ensure that the "Delete after forwarding" box is not checked.

If there is an email address that you don't recognize in that field:

Write down the address.
Uncheck the box next to "Forward my email to" and delete the address from the field.
Click Done.
Contact MobileMe Support to report what happened.

It's also a good idea to go to me.com/account to check that none of your personal information has been changed there either (such as your name, mailing address, birth date, or alternate email address). Again, if anything has been changed, write it down and contact MobileMe Support to report the issue.

Continuing to keep your account and personal information secure

Follow the steps in this article for best practices on how to keep your account secure in the future.