Many on social media believe that "the 31 August 2014 will forever be remembered as The Fappening 2014," but it will be for all the wrong reasons. The day saw the release of tons of private pictures of celebrities into public forums by hackers exposing the loopholes in iCloud security.
Jennifer Lawrence, Rihanna, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez — and the list of female celebrities in the nude leak include just about every A-lister from Hollywood.
The controversial photos allegedly were taken due to an Apple iCloud leak that allowed celebrities' phones to be hacked, and were then posted on 4chan in an attempt to earn bitcoins, according to BuzzFeed. The hacker also has claimed that besides Jennifer Lawrence, he also hundreds of nude images Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, Cara Delevingne, Candice Swanepoel and Mary Kate Olsen.
With nude images of Jennifer Lawrence going viral, the rep team of the 24-year-old Hunger Games star is planning on a legal course.
The massive nude leak of celebrity photos, have now raised quite some concern over privacy and security issues of iCloud. The privacy issues not only threaten the celebrities but also the millions of other users as well.
Apple's iCloud was originally launched in late 2011, as a replacement for the company's MobileMe service. According a report in the Q2 2013 quarterly earnings call, Apple had revealed that iCloud now has more than 300 million users, a 20% increase from the 250 million that it reported during its Q1 earnings call in January.
Following the massive security breach many are now even calling for an outright stop on using iCloud. "You see, allegedly, the hacker was able to obtain this treasure-trove of private photos by hacking into iCloud. For the many people who were considered paranoid about distrusting the cloud, this justifies their concerns. While I don't think it is time for people to run away from the cloud overall, I do think people should stop using iCloud until Apple comments on the situation, " Technology writer Brian Fagioli notes on betanews.
The report also noted that despite the massive breach, till now there has been no official statement. "Right now, the company is surely putting a lot of effort into its big September 9th iPhone unveiling, but I would imagine many iCloud users would prefer the focus be aimed at security instead," Fagioli emphasised.
Despite the security, a Mashable report but noted that until it has strong evidence that indicated iCloud it had no reason to believe that iCloud is unsafe.
