(CNN) -- On Friday night, Wired technology journalist Mat Honan was brutally hacked. In a chain of events that Honan would unravel in the following days, hackers took advantage of security holes at Amazon and Apple to gain access to his iCloud account. They then took over his Gmail account, remotely wiped all data from his MacBook Air, iPhone and iPad, and took over his Twitter account as well as the Twitter account of his former employer, Gizmodo. The incident might seem small on its surface -- just one person's information, not a huge data breach of credit card numbers. But this one very public incident, thoroughly documented by Honan in a Wired article, could be a wake-up call to many who store their information with cloud-based services, including Amazon, Apple and Google.
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Hackers use possible Amazon and Apple security holes to delete tech writer's data
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Hackers use fairly basic techniques to accomplish the hack
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Apple: "We found that our own internal policies were not followed completely"
Mat Honan
Honan
Honan
They found Honan's home address and e-mail address online, and after some back and forth with Amazon tech support, used it to get the last four digits of @placeholder's credit card number.
Apple
Apple
Apple
Apple
They called @placeholder customer support pretending to be Honan and used those four numbers along with same billing address to verify his identity, gaining access to Honan's iCloud account and the associated .Me account.
Mat Honan
Honan
Honan
They called Apple customer support pretending to be Honan and used those four numbers along with same billing address to verify his identity, gaining access to @placeholder's iCloud account and the associated .Me account.
Mat Honan
Honan
Honan
The .Me account was @placeholder's backup e-mail for his Gmail account.
Gmail
The .Me account was Honan's backup e-mail for his @placeholder account.
Gmail
Once they were in his Gmail, the hackers could reset passwords for all the key accounts that used @placeholder, including Twitter accounts.
Twitter
Twitter
Once they were in his Gmail, the hackers could reset passwords for all the key accounts that used Gmail, including @placeholder accounts.
Twitter
Twitter
In conversations with Honan, one of the hackers responsible revealed he just wanted Honan's three-letter @placeholder handle, @mat.