In a statement on Tuesday, Apple said that the iCloud hack that caused many nude photos of celebrities to leak was not the result of a widespread attack on the iCloud system, rather it was targeted on individual celebrities.
Here is the statement regarding to the iCloud hack:
“We wanted to provide an update to our investigation into the theft of photos of certain celebrities. When we learned of the theft, we were outraged and immediately mobilized Apple’s engineers to discover the source. Our customers’ privacy and security are of utmost importance to us. After more than 40 hours of investigation, we have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet. None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple’s systems including iCloud® or Find my iPhone. We are continuing to work with law enforcement to help identify the criminals involved.
To protect against this type of attack, we advise all users to always use a strong password and enable two-step verification. Both of these are addressed on our website at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4232.”
Shortly after the statement was released on the iCloud hack, many journalists and tech pandits pointed out that Apple is pointing out blame on the wrong people.
There are several theories as to how the hackers hacked in to the accounts of celebrities, although the most prominent of them all is the “brute force” tactic. This means that the iCloud hack was conducted by hit and trial basis of guessing the Apple ID and password by advanced software and maneuvers.
Apple’s statement does imply that a “brute force” or something like that was conducted for the iCloud hack. Here is the statement:
“After more than 40 hours of investigation, we have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet.”
Until there is no solution for the iCloud hack, you should enable the 2-step verification on everything you can. It is not the best solution, but it is better than nothing.