Celebrity nudes hacked; Apple denies to accept the blame; What this means to you?

And the last long weekend was not good for the famous women around! There was a massive online leak of alleged personal pictures pulled from the iCloud. The hacked celebrity list include Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Selena Gomez, Rihanna, Lea Michele, Kirstin Dunst, Avril Lavigne and many others. While some of the pictures are authentic(identified by the celebrities themselves), some other pictures were said to be photo-shopped. But? Whats even more threatening is the hack and lack of privacy!

What Apple has to say about this?

Apple stated that no specific bug or vulnerability in iCloud’s code caused the commotion and the attack was specific. The hacker had use Brute Force kind of attack to download the individual’s iCloud Backup.

Update : Wired reports that the hackers have used Elcomsoft’s Phone Password Breaker (EPPB). Elcomsoft’s EPPB is a forensic tool used by the law officials to download suspect’s iCloud Backup.

Why Celebrities are so easy to be hacked?

And yes, Apple iCloud(very similar to other websites around) has a feature that would allow you to reset the password, if you answer the security questions. And those security questions may be difficult to crack if you are a common person, since no one will know your(friends name or pet name or your nickname) unless he/she is close to you. But what is the case of a celebrity? all questions answered with little effort!

“So many online accounts like iCloud are based on pieces of information like where you were born or what year you went to school that are relatively easy to gather,” said Michael Gregg, CEO of a computer security consulting firm.

So what should you do now?

Firstly, stop thinking about searching for those pictures! Investigation about the hacker is going on and anyone who is sneak peeking on others private photos is eligible to be prosecuted (Although its not clear on what grounds, everyone clicking on the picture will be prosecuted).

Next, stop uploading pictures (esp. private pictures online). We had already seen many many similar cases.  And anything online cannot be secure and safe all time.

Lastly if you are compelled to upload pictures on iCloud, set-up that two-step authentication right now!