In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed. First my Google account was taken over, then deleted. Next my Twitter account was compromised, and used as a platform to broadcast racist and homophobic messages. And worst of all, my AppleID account was broken into, and my hackers used it to remotely erase all of the data on my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook

It wasn’t bad or insecure passwords, wasn’t a brute force breaking of them. Not even theft of the passwords from some note or email. It appears to have been a failure in Apple’s security that allowed it to happen.

You don't need Time Machine, you just need an offline backup.
Any offline backup system will do, just make sure you have one.

Mark

The point of the article isn't really that he should have backed up his data.
It's more about thinking what you can do to make it as difficult for attackers to get access to your improtant accounts like google.
Using different passwords is a first step but there are also others like two step authentication.

I posted it in the meeting place for a reason: so people would see how easy it is for their life to get destroyed and that it pays to be careful.

I know. Time Machine is the most obvious choice though, IMO. Touted as a major feature of Leopard, it has always been one of the big features Apple has pushed since. It's not hard to imagine that someone who is surrounded by the Apple ecosystem to use Time Machine. But as you say, anything would have been better.

The point of the article isn't really that he should have backed up his data.
It's more about thinking what you can do to make it as difficult for attackers to get access to your improtant accounts like google.
Using different passwords is a first step but there are also others like two step authentication.

Also having to link mail accounts from one service to another (E.g. the Google and Twitter password resets were sent to his compromised Apple account) doesn't make things any better. If they manage to break into the account at the head of the chain, they can get to every account.

Having a method of password recovery for an email service that doesn't depend on having another email service...

Send it by snailmail. Or by telegram?

Using different passwords is irrelevant - and he did use different passwords. If Apple will reset your password for anybody who has the last 4 digits of your credit card number, it doesn't matter how strong your password is! Also having to link mail accounts from one service to another (E.g. the Google and Twitter password resets were sent to his compromised Apple account) doesn't make things any better. If they manage to break into the account at the head of the chain, they can get to every account.

And Amazon are just as bad allowing you to add a new credit card over the phone with minimal security, and then use that credit card as a means of answering security questions to reset passwords.

Send it by snailmail. Or by telegram?