Hackers Using Same Tools As Police To Hack Into iCloud Accounts

[Guest]

Some of the leaked photos of celebrities may have been obtained using the very same tools the police or government agencies use to extract data from iPhones and iPads.

Hackers Using Same Tools As Police To Hack Into iCloud Accounts : Read more

 

[dovah-chan]

Okay it's pretty clear just by the age of some pictures and the devices that were used to take them that they were not on the iCloud. Apple has denied that such an exploit exists and has been discovered. This is different from a phishing scam or some weak passwords when you have a humongous list of celebrities with a collection of pictures, some being years old.

It appears that these pictures were dumped from users of a secret trading ring of celebrity nudes. Someone must've shared with someone who then proceeded to share with others and then all hell broke loose and the others decided to say why not and share as well.

I think the iCloud nonsense is a hoax. This runs into a very different source just based on the evidence provided by the metadata in the pictures themselves.

 

[ubercake]

Funny. A brand-new Apple press release is saying the leaked photos of the stars are fakes and they weren't from hacked accounts.

 

[Guest]

But but but... the police told me it was a good thing for them to have back doors!

Imagine what happens when someone hacks Intel's Active Management Technology. vPro doesn't sound too smart now, does it?

 

[dovah-chan]

Funny. A brand-new Apple press release is saying the leaked photos of the stars are fakes and they weren't from hacked accounts.

They are definitely not fake. You just can't look through all those photos and call them fake; especially when there are clear as day videos that I've seen myself with celebrities in it. Not to mention any geodata that are in the photos. I'm not belittling these people at all for having a private life. As a woman myself I value my privacy and am a bit offended at how people are reacting to this but that's besides the point. But it doesn't make any sense how they just mention iPhones anyway since not all of these people use an iPhone. I'm sure some of them have never even owned one.

 

[house70]

They are definitely not fake. You just can't look through all those photos and call them fake; especially when there are clear as day videos that I've seen myself with celebrities in it. Not to mention any geodata that are in the photos. I'm not belittling these people at all for having a private life. As a woman myself I value my privacy and am a bit offended at how people are reacting to this but that's besides the point. But it doesn't make any sense how they just mention iPhones anyway since not all of these people use an iPhone. I'm sure some of them have never even owned one.

Let's see... iCloud hacked and photos leaked... uploaded from mobile devices that use iCloud as backup... Yeah, they did use iPhones.
Not all celebs use iPhones, I'll give you that, but all these pics were uploaded by iPhone people.

 

[dovah-chan]

They are definitely not fake. You just can't look through all those photos and call them fake; especially when there are clear as day videos that I've seen myself with celebrities in it. Not to mention any geodata that are in the photos. I'm not belittling these people at all for having a private life. As a woman myself I value my privacy and am a bit offended at how people are reacting to this but that's besides the point. But it doesn't make any sense how they just mention iPhones anyway since not all of these people use an iPhone. I'm sure some of them have never even owned one.

Let's see... iCloud hacked and photos leaked... uploaded from mobile devices that use iCloud as backup... Yeah, they did use iPhones.
Not all celebs use iPhones, I'll give you that, but all these pics were uploaded by iPhone people.

http://puu.sh/bjR09/3e8fc11a27.jpg

Obviously that big phone with the huge camera just screams iphone.

 

[Amdlova]

its why i have pictures of places not people.

 

[spentshells]

Please have a new article when Sofia Vergara photos show up.

 

[Zepid]

But this article is 100% false. I hate Apple as much as the next rational oxygen-breathing lifeform but these were a result of social engineering. Not even that, none of these users had two factor authentication on. When you can get the e-mail from a facebook account and the name of your first dog to pass the password reset there isn't much else left up to gaining access. You just have to find the weakest link. Usually it is an outside party like e-mail or facebook.

In fact, the whole "hack" was thoroughly documented by the group of users who perpetrated it, they documented the entire process and posted it leading up to the leaks. How news outlets manage to get this wrong despite those people taking credit and documenting it is beyond me. Apple's story syncs up with this fact.

 

[koga73]

From what I heard the hackers were able to simply run a dictionary against the FindMyiPhone API. Specifically an endpoint that wasn't protected from brute-force attacks. This seems completely plausible to me. Once the hackers figure out the password accessing iCloud with it should be simple.

In regards to old "deleted" images if iPhone backups were stored on iCloud then it's completely possible a hacker may have recovered the deleted images from an old backup.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

From what I heard the hackers were able to simply run a dictionary against the FindMyiPhone API. Specifically an endpoint that wasn't protected from brute-force attacks. This seems completely plausible to me. Once the hackers figure out the password accessing iCloud with it should be simple.

In regards to old "deleted" images if iPhone backups were stored on iCloud then it's completely possible a hacker may have recovered the deleted images from an old backup.

If Apply does not have any protection from a bot that tries millions of API passwords then they need to step up their security.

 

[hst101rox]

Good article

 

[house70]

http://puu.sh/bjR09/3e8fc11a27.jpg

Obviously that big phone with the huge camera just screams iphone.

The ONLY sure thing in that pic is the SGS3, being held into some seriously big hands. Can't say the same about the person(s) holding it, can't even tell if it was photo-shopped or not (kinda funny hand to be attached to the girl, too).

And the point still stands: iCloud is attached to Apple accounts (iTunes or whatever they call them these days). Even more important, it was the iCloud 's security that was breached, not the phone's.

 

[Richeemxx]

But it doesn't make any sense how they just mention iPhones anyway since not all of these people use an iPhone. I'm sure some of them have never even owned one.

Just because some of the images show phones other than iPhones has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that iCloud (not iPhones) is mentioned in the hack. I do believe the hackers that stole the photos directly stated where they got them! Plenty of users that switch platforms have old photos from other devices, or could have other iDevices and use iCloud without an iPhone. So that would refute any ideas that just because they aren't taken with an iPhone they weren't stolen from iCloud.

The one problem I have with Apple in this case is the typical utter lack of transparency and the move to quickly 'pass the blame' to everyone else. Clearly there is a bit more to this than Apple will let on.