- Where Are Your Digital Photos Stored?
- How to Break Into an iCloud Account
- Keeping Your Photos Safe from Thieves
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How to Break Into an iCloud Account
Let's focus for the moment on the cloud storage end of things, which is where the latest theft of celebrity photos apparently occurred. We'll use Apple's iCloud as an example, as it's the default photo backup service for anyone with an iPhone, but other cloud storage services work in much the same fashion.
First, know that it is always possible for a hacker to literally “hack” into an iCloud account, by somehow guessing or cracking the user's password. Possible, that is, if not whole probable. That's because Apple, like most cloud-based storage services, employs a fairly robust encryption system for all the data it stores online. Trying to crack this code via brute force could take billions of years, at least using current code-cracking technology. So if you want to break into a person's iCloud account, this probably isn't the way to do it.
An easier approach for digital data thieves is to do it the old fashioned way[md]by stealing or guessing the password for a user's account. You'd be surprised how many people use easily guessable passwords[md]even a password as simple as “password.“ We're talking passwords that use the person's middle name, maiden name, pet's name, birthdate, street address, you name it. This type of password might be easy for a person to remember (and goodness knows we all have a lot of passwords to remember) but it's also easily guessed. If I know the name of your pet, for example, I could employ a password-cracking application that would rapidly enter your pet's name followed by a succession of numbers. One of those combinations will match your pet-based password, and then I'm into your account.
You may even have given your password to a criminal without knowing it. Many data thieves employ so-called phishing techniques to trick you out of giving them your passwords and other personal information. This typically starts in the form of an email that looks a lot like it came from some official entity[md]your bank, perhaps, or your credit card company or even Apple or Dropbox. You click a link the email and you're taken to an official-looking website, where you're prompted to enter your username and password and perhaps other sensitive information. Once you enter it, the thieves have it and can use it as they wish.
It's likely that this is how the photo thieves accessed those celebrity iCloud accounts. Let's face it, no matter how sophisticated the encryption that Apple and other cloud-based providers apply to your data, it's only as safe as your password. If you hand your password to them on a platter via a phishing website, then you've just made their lives a whole lot easier.