Apple says iCloud and Find my iPhone are safe, celebrity photo leaks were ‘targeted’ attacks
In a just released statement, Apple has denied that iCloud or Find my iPhone were breached in the recent celebrity photo leaks.
Here’s the complete statement:
We wanted to provide an update to our investigation into the theft of photos of certain celebrities. When we learned of the theft, we were outraged and immediately mobilized Apple’s engineers to discover the source. Our customers’ privacy and security are of utmost importance to us. After more than 40 hours of investigation, we have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet. None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple’s systems including iCloud® or Find my iPhone. We are continuing to work with law enforcement to help identify the criminals involved.
To protect against this type of attack, we advise all users to always use a strong password and enable two-step verification. Both of these are addressed on our website at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4232.
Over the weekend, a number of private photos of celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, and others were leaked on 4chan.
In a statement yesterday, Apple says it was actively investigating the issue.
