Submitted by Anders Batten on
Apple today published a press release addressing the massive celebrity photo leak that broke the internet over Labor Day weekend. In case you've been living under a rock, an unidentified person published private photos of several high profile celebrities, like Jennifer Lawrence, to an infamous image board that we will not name. Several reports suggested that the hacker may have acquired the images through a security flaw found in Apple's iCloud or Find My iPhone services, but today Apple confirmed that there was no breach in any of its systems. Instead Apple said the celebrities were victim of a " targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions."
"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."
The FBI also released a statement on Monday regarding the incident:
“The FBI is aware of the allegations concerning computer intrusions and the unlawful release of material involving high profile individuals, and is addressing the matter,” the statement said. “Any further comment would be inappropriate at this time.”
Lawrence’s representatives slammed the hacker calling the leak a “flagrant violation of privacy," and other celebrities, like Emma Watson, took to Twitter to defend those who were violated.
"Even worse than seeing women's privacy violated on social media is reading the accompanying comments that show such a lack of empathy," tweeted Watson.
Watson and others were upset with people who blamed the victims for not being more careful with their private photos, instead of blaming the person who stole and leaked them.