Apple on Tuesday issued an update on their investigation into the unprecedented theft of photos of dozens of celebrities over the weekend. In it, the Cupertino-based company said none of the cases they’ve looked into resulted from a breach in any of their systems including iCloud or Find my iPhone.
After learning of the theft, Apple said they immediately mobilized engineers to discover the source. After more than 40 hours of investigation, they discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on usernames, passwords and security questions – a practice that Apple says has become all too common on the Internet.
Apple said they are continuing to work with law enforcement to help identify those involved. In the meantime, the company advises all users to always use a strong password and enable two-step verification.
For those not up to speed, a treasure trove of photos depicting female celebrities in various stages of undress hit the Internet over the weekend which sent the web into a tailspin.
If Apple is indeed correct in their assumption that this is a highly targeted attack, it means that someone or more likely, a group of people, have been meticulously gathering information on various celebrities in an effort to try and crack their login credentials. Once the hackers had gathered enough dirt (who knows how long they have been working at it), they published their findings all at once in order to appear as though it were a serious security breach.
