With just a week to go until Apple announce the highly anticipated iPhone 6, the last thing the Cupertino crew needed was a scandal. Unfortunately for Apple, it is now facing a doozy.
An anonymous hacker has posted a gigantic dump of private images featuring celebrities which apparently were stolen from celebrity iCloud accounts. The list of leaked celebrity photos reportedly features over 100 female celebrities, with a vulnerability in Apple’s iCloud storage system to blame for the illegal access.
Considering just how many Hollywood stars use iPhones, the timing is terrible for Apple, and we can only wonder how many of the celebrities exposed will choose to blame their favourite gadgets for the vulgar intrusion.
End of the affair?
If you Google image search ‘celebrity phones’ (and it’s probably a good idea to turn SafeSearch on) you might be surprised with how many iPhones you see. Unless a celebrity is helping to promote a competitor’s brand, there is a very good chance you will see them clutching an iPhone -- especially on their days off.
Everyone from Justin Bieber, David Beckham, Hugh Jackman and Kim Kardashian use iPhones. Even former-BlackBerry brand ambassador Alicia Keys was caught tweeting from an iPhone on the same day she was announced as the new BlackBerry celebrity spokesperson.
And of course, there is the 101 female celebrities listed in the leak.
While it’d be unfair to blame Apple entirely for the leak — you can be sure someone worked very hard to gain access — you could argue that having all of this sensitive information stored in a single service made it infinitely easier to steal these photos. The same vulnerability that gave the hacker access to Jennifer Lawrence’s account, gave them access to all accounts.
This isn’t to say a similar hack couldn’t have occurred on a different cloud computing service, though it is unlikely to have the same vulnerability. There's bound to be a number of Android-toting celebs breathing a hugh sigh of relief this morning.
Having your private life splashed across the internet must be a traumatic experience to endure, but for it to happen in the same month you were probably going to upgrade your older iPhone to the latest model might be enough for you to reconsider your options.
Anyone else backing up to Google Drive from now on?
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