Alappuzha native identifies Apple’s security flaw, enters hall of fame

Alappuzha: A Computer Engineering student from Kerala has been inducted into the Hall of Fame of digital giant Apple Inc for finding a security flaw in its cloud service platform. 

K S Ananthakrishnan from Mankombu in Kerala's Alappuzha district discovered a major security breach in the server of iCloud, the cloud-storage and cloud-computing service of Apple.  iCloud email users were vulnerable to this flaw. 

The security lapse was spotted in January and it was communicated to the Apple engineers. The Apple developers fixed the issue; however, Ananthakrishnan found that the solution did not apply to all accounts with the server. After Apple fixed the flaw, it was identified that it applies only to the newly created accounts. Ananthakrishnan again informed Apple of these new findings.

The Hall of Fame is published once every three months. Earlier, Ananthakrishnan had entered the Halls of Fame for Google, Facebook and Github by identifying their security lapses.

The Apple also rewarded him with a cash prize of 2,500 US Dollars. At present, the company is in the process of fixing the issue for all users of the iCloud server.

Ananthakrishnan, a final-year student of Computer Engineering with Pathanamthitta Mount Zion Engineering College, has launched a start-up company in the field of cyber security, along with his friends. He is a member of Kerala Police Cyberdome and the Def Con Trivandrum, an association for hackers.

Ananthakrishnan's parents are Krishnakumar and Sreeja of Krishna Vihar House at Mankombu. He has a sister named Gouri Parvathi.