Recent celebrity photo leak from iCloud have sent the world in a tizzy. These photos, mostly taken in the privacy of their homes, have many female celebrities in nude, semi-nude or compromising postures. This revelation has put a big question mark on the safety and security of Apple’s iCloud and the entire concept of cloud storage service in general.
Cloud storage has arrived as an alternative for data storage. With the regular upgradation of technology, storage of data was becoming a vital factor. Data storage in hard copies has become obsolete a long time now. But with the ever increasing amount of information storage drives too were proving to be small and congested. For this storage problem, the concept of cloud storage was developed.
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Cloud storage is the accumulation of data in a space within a server. These are divided into various accounts with a pre determined storage space. This storage is by far the best storage service as data is available online. It can be accessed from anywhere in the world just with a proper internet connection. Storage space is charged accordingly.
Because of the bulk storage space, many leading companies utilize these spaces to store information. Storage space is also available for consumer use.
Apple’s iCloud is a similar cloud storage space. Apple provides free storage space of 5GB for people using iOS devices. This gets activated as soon as one opens an iCloud account. Users can then store photos, files, videos, documents in these accounts. Safety of cloud storage was something cloud users could boast of. But the recent celebrity photo leak has questioned the safety of cloud storage.
Celebrities claimed that the photos that were leaked were mostly taken from iCloud. This celebrity photo leak has stunned them and the safety of cloud storage has been the main question asked.
Apple has been deep into the investigation in the celebrity photo leak. Sources say that the celebrities’ accounts were hacked through brute force. A Mobile security firm HackApp had recently posted a hack showing how to crack into iCloud through brute force. This has displayed how fragile the safety of cloud storage is. It is being thought that this hack process was used for the celebrity photo leak.
Hacking accounts through brute force is quite easy especially if the password is a weak one. It is also simple for accounts which let users type in password any number of times. Facebook and Twitter are examples of such accounts.
An anonymous user has already accepted responsibility for the celebrity photo leak. However, the hacker claims that he has still more photos with him which can be seen with payments. This payment channel has been identified as a PayPal account.
Some female celebrities’ spokesperson has said that the celebrity photo leak posted were originals. But some celebs like Victoria Justice announced that the images of hers were digitally reformed.
Cyber crime department hands on with Apple are looking into finding the criminal. Incidences like these had happened in the past as well. Actress Scarlett Johansson and singer Rihanna have been victims of such hacks in the past.
But the question over the safety of cloud storage still lingers within everybody.
The Tech Cult 