{"id":37656,"date":"2014-09-03T09:05:52","date_gmt":"2014-09-03T16:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.mcafee.com\/?p=37656"},"modified":"2025-08-17T20:32:50","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T03:32:50","slug":"celebrity-photo-dump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/privacy-identity-protection\/celebrity-photo-dump\/","title":{"rendered":"Nude Celebrity Photo Dump Has Many Asking What Happened"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of private photos belonging to several high-profile Hollywood actresses were posted online this past weekend. They are explicit in nature, and were not intended to be seen by the public. But they have been. The question, now, is how did this happen?<\/p>\n

The Theories<\/h2>\n

The details of the hackings haven\u2019t been worked out quite yet, but there are two popular theories floating around: the first is that the hacker, or hackers, exploited a vulnerability<\/a> allowing cybercriminals to make an unlimited number of password guesses on Apple\u2019s cloud service offering, iCloud. This type of attack\u2014repeatedly guessing passwords until the successful password is found\u2014is called a brute force attack, and is typically done with an automated program. Once an iCloud account is breached, or any cloud service for that matter, the hackers can view and retrieve anything saved in that cloud such as contacts, photos, saved notes, and more.<\/p>\n

The second theory, one suggested by Apple after it made an official statement<\/a> on the situation, is that these celebrities may have fallen victim to a social engineering<\/a> attack. Social engineering attacks are attacks that take advantage of social habits in order to compromise an account or gain access to sensitive information. For example, a \u201chacker\u201d could pose as someone who works at your company, but in a different department, in order to trick you into giving up sensitive company information. This wouldn\u2019t be the first time that a social engineering attack made headlines. In 2012, digital journalist Mat Honan had his life turned upside down when hackers gained access to nearly all of his online accounts through social engineering techniques.<\/p>\n

Regardless of which theory is accurate, the result is fairly predictable: someone involved with the hacking ring, or the single person who accrued all of these photos, wanted to show off on an Internet imaging board and posted stolen photos. Those photos, of course, were shared throughout the Web, and the privacy of these well-known individuals was shattered.<\/p>\n

We won\u2019t know what hacking method was used for some time, possibly not until after an F.B.I. investigation<\/a>. That investigation won\u2019t restore anyone\u2019s lost privacy, but it\u2019ll hopefully result in some much-needed justice. In the meantime, what can people do in order to protect themselves from such attacks?<\/p>\n

Of course, with celebrities being in the public eye,\u00a0the demand for their personal photos is quite high. Still, while you may not be a celebrity, there are a few important steps that you can take to protect your online identity, and your private photos.<\/p>\n