Yesterday morning a number of people across Australia woke up with an unpleasant message on their Iphones.

The typical message read like this: “Device hacked by Oleg Pliss. For unlock device, you need send voucher code by 100 usd/eur (Moneypack/Ukash/PaySafeCard) to email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for unlock.”

The hacker who calls himself "Oleg Pliss" systematically froze iPhone, iPad and Mac users out of their own devices, holding them hostage until payments of between $50 and $100 were received.

The hack was conducted by exploiting a weakness in Apple’s “Find My iPhone” feature. In fact the victims who had set a password on their device were able to unlock them without paying the ransom. However, most people without passwords set up prior to the attack were not able to regain access to their device.

As if that was not enough PayPal told the Sydney Morning Herald that the email address in the message is not linked to any account and so anyone who had paid the ransom can be refunded.

To keep your devices from being attacked is simple and involves two steps.

• Step 1. Change you Apple ID password
• Step 2. Make sure that you have a two factor authentication enabled.

In this way even if the hacker discovers you password he cannot do any changes without having in his hands your Apple device to access your account.