WTF?! Apple's Hide My Email tool has long been considered one of the company's best privacy features, but it might not be as secure as Cupertino claims. A vulnerability uncovered by researchers appears to allow your real email address to be discovered by attackers.
Hide My Email, available through iCloud+, lets users create random addresses that forward messages to their real inbox.
The idea is that you can sign up for newsletters, apps, online stores, or any site giving off strong "we will sell this to 14 data brokers" energy without handing over your own email. If the alias starts attracting spam, you can deactivate it and move on.
According to 404 Media, privacy firm EasyOptOuts discovered a flaw that can link one of those supposedly anonymous aliases back to the user's real email address.
The outlet says it verified the issue by creating a new Hide My Email address and sending it to EasyOptOuts co-founder Tyler Murphy, who was able to identify the real Apple account email behind it in around five minutes.
