Jennifer Lawrence hours before she won her Academy Award in 2013. The most recent photos to go public are far more personal. Credit: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
This past weekend, the media and social media channels were ablaze with the alleged hacking of celebrity iCloud accounts, which included Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and over a dozen other female actors. Apple has written replies stating that it has investigated and it was not something to do with their system being compromised.
And just to be clear, these were not leaked photos, these were private pieces of data on famous people’s devices who were robbed of their possessions. The material was then shown off on a few remote corners of the internet, and it exploded in just a couple of days.
The sad truth is that this happens to thousands of people every day. Individuals get hacked by individuals, ex-partners and even organized crime. Digital theft is everywhere, and it’s invasive when it happens.
So How Did it Happen?
The theory is that celebrities were ‘hacked,’ but we like to think that true hackers, by definition have a moral fibre. Credit: Business Insider
Well, no one seems to have all the answers, but the suspicion is that some ‘hackers’ specifically targeted celebrities and used brute force attacks, working every possible password combination over and over and making less secure passwords easy to beat.
If brute force attacks weren’t used, it’s possible that hackers may have used phishing attacks targeting security questions on celebrity iCloud accounts.
It’s easier to do than one might imagine. Most people don’t make up their own questions, and celebrities are not hard to research.
It can get pretty scary when you think about how easy it can be for those who want to cause mayhem online, whether it’s bored hackers, criminals or people trying to do you harm.
A REALTORS® Best Protection
Cloud-based services like iCloud, GoogleDocs and Dropbox (among others) offer a higher security feature called two-step authentication. Two-step authentication means that to access your account, you must move through two separate steps to get there. One version of this method is to have users verify their phones and devices, and have them as a step in authenticating that you are who you say you are. If anyone tries to access your account from anywhere else, you will be sent a notification and four-digit code that has to be entered along with your password. Since hackers will likely not be holding your phone when they try accessing your account, you’re protected—and aware of the attack.
Let’s use iCloud to its fullest protective potential.
It’s weird to think that Apple has been so quiet about promoting this service, but our guess is that will likely change now that Jennifer Lawrence and a host of other individuals’ privacy has been so brutally violated. (Also, a new Apple event happens September 9th.)
If you want to get started setting up your iCloud authentication,
- Go to appleid.apple.com
- Click Password and Security in the left menu
- Go to Two-Step Verification
- Click Get Started
From there, you will be able to set up your phone number(s) and register your trusted devices. You can also get a recovery key, which you can store in a safe place should all of your devices be lost or damaged.
At this point, in order to log in to your Apple ID, you will need two of the following three things:
- Your working account password
- A registered device
- Your recovery key
Google Docs, Facebook, Twitter and Dropbox all have slightly different methods of doing the same thing. The point here is that anyone who conducts business using cloud-based services should set up two-step authentication. If you store any personal data in the cloud, setup the authentication. It’s the safest way to protect your privacy.
Sadly, it’s too late for those celebrities whose worlds have been violated. But real estate professionals can still be well protected.
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