Apple : Update to Celebrity Photo Investigation

[decay]

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/09/...isory.html

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.

Press Contacts:
Natalie Kerris
Apple
nat@apple.com
(408) 974-6877

Trudy Muller
Apple
tmuller@apple.com
(408) 862-7426

[Paul F.]

In other words, they all "recycled" usernames, passwords, and security questions that they'd used at sites that HAD gotten compromised.

[August West]

I read that for a long time apple allowed unlimited tries to login on find my phone, allowing brute force attacks. Not an expert on iCloud, so I can't vouch for the veracity of that statement; I only sync by reminders and calendar.

[deckeda]

August West wrote:
I read that for a long time apple allowed unlimited tries to login on find my phone, allowing brute force attacks. Not an expert on iCloud, so I can't vouch for the veracity of that statement; I only sync by reminders and calendar.

Yep, not broken security per se but weak security. The fact that Apple quickly patched on 9/1 (when the proof of concept code was published on 8/30) didn't matter. The images were already out.

[ztirffritz]

I'm amazed at how difficult it is to find these photos online. Not that I'm looking for them, or anything like that.

[chopper]

Reddit?

[Bosco]

I'm amazed at how much everyone is making a big deal about this... The FBI is involved too.

All this for someone (allegedly) hacking a celebrity iCloud account?

-

[MGS_forgot_password]

After more than 40 hours of investigation

So ten engineers looked at it this morning before lunch?

[GGD]

MGS_forgot_password wrote:

After more than 40 hours of investigation

So ten engineers looked at it this morning before lunch?

Carefully examining each and every picture.

[hal]

Bosco wrote:
I'm amazed at how much everyone is making a big deal about this... The FBI is involved too.

All this for someone (allegedly) hacking a celebrity iCloud account?

-

Celebrities don't have rights to privacy? It's a BFD to me. It's about online security and theft - the victim's celebrity shouldn't be a factor.