Pippa Middleton’s iCloud account was hacked stealing round 3,000 private photographs. The Sun said it had been approached by someone using a pseudonym and asking for £50,000 within 48 hours. IT security experts commented below how people, royalty or not, can secure their iCloud accounts and stay safe online.
Javvad Malik, Security Advocate at AlienVault:
Javvad made a video about photos in the cloud a while back.
Mark James, Security Specialist at ESET:
This leads to another problem, your security as always is in the hands of others. Apple will of course do all they possibly can to protect your data but you are responsible to help them with that task. Ensuring your password is fairly complex and definitely not used on any other site should be the basics. I appreciate it’s hard to remember all those logins but with the plethora of password managers available these days it is much easier to manage. Also consider Apple’s two-step verification, this will form a third aspect of security above your username and password for signing into your Apple ID account page, signing into iMessage, FaceTime, Game Centre or iCloud from a new device and protect any attempt to make purchases from Apple. Whenever you do any of the above you will be required to enter a code sent to your registered device so even if your username and password are compromised they won’t be able to access your account and thus your private data stays private.”
Brian Spector, CEO at MIRACL:
All users, celebrities or not, need to be aware of the value of their personal data on the web, and take steps to protect it. Choosing complex passwords and avoiding using the same password for multiple sites is helpful, but it’s hardly user-friendly. The underlying issue is that the username and password system is old technology that simply cannot secure the deep information and private services that we all store and access online today. Ultimately online services need to protect their users more effectively by replacing the password with a more secure and usable solution.”
Tim Erlin, Director, Product Management, Security and IT Risk Strategist at Tripwire: