DATA NEVER DIES IN THE CLOUD
By Liz Gunn || Another data breach, this time from Apple, has allowed a hacker (or hackers) access to hundreds of intimate celebrity photos. Jennifer Lawrence, Rihanna, Kate Upton are just a few of the celebs on the list of those targeted. Pictures were accessed via celebrities’ iCloud accounts, although it’s still unclear exactly how they were able to get in.
The most disturbing part of this breach is that one actress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Final Destination) said her photos in question were deleted from her account years ago. Therefore, if you have ever taken an indecent photo of yourself or someone else, just know that it’s not necessarily gone. That’s comforting, right?
I used to live by the phrase “Don’t ever put anything in writing that you wouldn’t want to explain to your grandmother or your boss.” I guess now the same goes for picture taking.
I take pictures of everything. If I see something funny, I snap it. It doesn’t matter if it’s something written on a bathroom stall or someone parading around the tailgate in a terrible outfit. I feel like it needs to be captured.
I know it’s easy for people to say “well if you don’t want your pictures leaked, then you shouldn’t have taken them”, but is that really the right answer? Forgive me for thinking that on my personal device, through my personal service plan and my personal storage account (all of which I pay for, personally) I should be afforded the convenience and security of having personal photos.
Many people believe that no one, even regular citizens like you and me, should have any reasonable expectation of privacy in today’s world. If this is true, why do most people go to great lengths and often great expense to protect their privacy? Password upon password, for every single thing you do these days, but I shouldn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to data?
In all honesty, having my iCloud account hacked isn’t something that will keep me up at night. I’m not a “person of interest” to legitimate hackers. And they would be sorely disappointed to only find thousands of pictures of a really adorable baby.
Although as a mom, this is just as frightening– the thought of some creep pilfering pictures of my child! What steps, if any, do you take to keep your personal and private data secure?
Here are a few tips from Geek Squad on some very basic things you can and should do.
-Use proactive software protection. Anti-malware software is a basic requirement for initial protection on all computers.
-Viruses and spyware can creep into your computer and easily degrade performance and corrupt or even destroy data.
-Use a firewall. Firewalls assist in blocking dangerous programs, viruses or spyware before they infiltrate your system. Various software companies offer firewall protection, but hardware-based firewalls, like those frequently built into network routers, provide a better level of security.
-Be cautious of suspicious emails from unknown sources. Don’t open emails with attachments if you don’t know the sender.
-Steer clear of websites of ill repute. These are havens for malicious and annoying intruders like spyware.
-Keep your operating system updated. Repair the security holes that hackers love to exploit with the newest critical updates from Microsoft or Apple.
Liz Gunn is a wife, mom, author, businesswoman, travel enthusiast, food snob, fashionista, lover of great wine and the No. 1 Gamecock football fan … ever. A graduate of the University of South Carolina, she lives in Columbia, S.C. with her husband and daughter.
37 comments
The JL pictures are friggin hot. She might be temporarily embarrassed, but it’s going to help her career.
The most disturbing part of this breach is that one actress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Final Destination) said her photos in question were deleted from her account years ago. Therefore, if you have ever taken an indecent photo of yourself or someone else, just know that it’s not necessarily gone. That’s comforting, right?
There’s all sorts of disturbing shit that nobody thinks about. Google (and thousands of other sites) records everything you do and caters advertisements based on it. Facebook records every letter you type, even if you don’t hit “post” (this was on FITSNews not long ago, mind you). Remember when the music industry decided rootkits on music CDs self-installing on computers without the consumer’s knowledge was a great idea?
I don’t think one can reasonably expect privacy when it comes to technology. If it isn’t the NSA getting your shit, it’s some random sixteen-year-old script kiddie in Russia who needs a shower, or some huge corporation that makes money poring over everything you do with a magnifying glass.
Careful. You seem to know too much. It looks like you prefer to keep your head out of the sand when it comes to technology.
Yep.
NSA still has those photos of you in drag from that Halloween party, tho they deny slipping you the GHB…
rootkits
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great idea! why get the most virulent plagues on earth for free when you can pay for them?
I don’t think one can reasonably expect privacy when it comes to technology.
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The “expectation of privacy” shouldn’t be legally defined by the intensity of your neighbor’s snoopiness… otherwise, the government will say “we’re no more snoopy than Anonymous,” and claim they can’t be held to a higher standard than the most determined hacker.
No mention of cyberstalking laws and the invasion of one’s “right to privacy”? I can understand why.
I work in IT and my advice to everyone is to ignore any laws on the books and false promises of data security and just assume that “they” have all your information, sites visited, bank data, pics, vids….everything.
Most of the time, “they” don’t care about using that info, but “they” can at anytime if “they” wanted to.
Wow. Thank you for breaking this. I has NO IDEA. And I’m sure Gov. Haley is quaking. This story you broke could not have come at a worse time for her. Thanks for connecting the two. Brilliant. This may just the miracle the Sheheen campaign has been looking for.
Can we leave Haley out of something? Seriously…this article was about one’s expectation of privacy from the context of hacking. I’m sure you would love to give credit (or blame) to a politician over something like this.
Therein lies the ultimate problem. Entirely too much faith/confidence/belief in politicians. They is nothing special about them. In fact, for the most part there is only awful things about them.
Take some personal accountability. “By the people, for the people.” Not “above the people.”
“Another Data Breach” in the headline…you are not THAT stupid, are you???
Apparently I am “THAT” stupid. I must have been way off base to miss the link between Haley and Apple and Hollywood.
Maybe I should just include more profanity laced drivel. Then I might sound more intelligent, just like you.
You’re 100% right…I did not intend to make any connection to Governor Haley in this post…data breaches happen all the time, everywhere. Not just in SC, and not just at the hands of our Governor.
I never claimed this was breaking news or mentioned a connection to Haley. I’m not sure what you’re referring to…
Just ignore him. He’s the local drunk uncle that never makes any sense.
Did you write the headline? It refers to ANOTHER DATA BREACH. What, according to FITS, is the MOTHER of ALL Data Breaches?…
Answer that, and you certainly should understand to what I’m referring.
Other than that, I find the subject matter a bit passe. But that’s just me.
PS: If the invasion of privacy could hurt Sarah Palin or damage George W. Bush, the hacker would hailed as a hero, and a worthy sunshine merchant, exposing the hated. But I agree with you, if you are foolish enough to put it out there, don’t act surprised someone found it, and published it.
Do you follow any news other than your stupid tardlog and what you steal from The State and FiTS? Do you follow tech at all? There have been multiple breaches every week this year. Another day another breach is the absolute truth. This is not about Haley or any other SC politics. It’s about naked celebrities with pictures leaked all over the internet, AKA The Fappening!
LOL…”Fappening”…
REDDIT thought of it first
Don’t talk to this idiot!
The GEEK SQUAD? Those donkeys can’t do anything but run a virus scan and then mail your computer to someone who actually knows how to fix it. Citing anything from the Geek Squad immediately discredits this entire article.
Good Lord I almost fell out when I saw that FITS is now providing us with high level IT / cloud security tips from the high end “IT professionals” at freaking Best Buy! As for me, I’ll stick to treating the cloud (and all remote storage, for that matter) like a mini-warehouse in Red Bank. Throw a padlock on it, but don’t put anything in there you can’t stand to lose.
“[M]ini-warehouse in Red Bank.”
I’m still amazed that folks can’t grab ahold of that concept.
high level IT / cloud security tips
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Those are NIPS, man! Fits is back!
“…my personal device, through my personal service plan and my personal storage account….”
The terms “personal” & “device / service plan / storage account” are mutually exclusive.
And, do you keep your device/laptop webcam covered. If they can hatch the device, they can turn on the camera.
Sounded a little like you were going towards blaming Apple but I don’t see this being Apple’s fault. When you say “if you don’t want people to see it don’t take it” others get on a high horse and grouse that the people shouldn’t have to worry about the pictures being public but what about the numerous times various celebrities have had their homes broken into and had sex taps or pictures stolen. Even in your own phone, purse, wallet, car or house nothing is totally secure. “If you don’t want people to see it don’t take it.”
There is a neat little trick hackers like to use, when something like this breaks out, they embed a virus in the picture binary file and then put it on a web site that shouts “Jennifer Lawrence, Rihanna, Kate Upton pictures here!!!!!” then some unsuspecting schmuck downloads the pictures and gets a virus for free, granted they are also getting the picture but…..
I agree that it doesn’t fall on Apple – from all accounts so far it seems as if hackers may have been able to guess passwords and security questions to gain access. I guess that’s easier to do when all the details of your personal life are available on the web. Still, you might think celebs would have a better system in place.
Never use real answers to the secret questions. Make up a fake set and memorize them, even if they are non-sense. i.e. Mother’s Maiden name – Chicken-Soup.
That’s a good tip.
Sounds like a business opportunity for a tech savvy individual to provide some cyber security to celebs using biometrics in one form or another.
embed a virus in the picture binary file
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now *there* is an interesting bit of superstitious folklore.
This is copied from a web site that explains;
“Really you’re interested in whether there’s a possibility of unexpected, arbitrary code execution when viewing an image. And yes, there is such a possibility of an attacker constructing a malicious image (or something that claims to be an image) that targets specific image viewing implementations with known flaws.
For example:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms05-009
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms04-028
http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb11-22.html
https://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2012/mfsa2012-92.html
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2010-1205
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Metafile_vulnerability
In general, these sorts of things are difficult to protect against. The best thing you can do is to keep your systems and applications updated. Enabling DEP for all programs also should help, as should avoiding running programs with administrative privileges.”
Here is the link to the web site;
http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/55061/can-malware-be-attached-to-an-image
Use a firewall.
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I use zone alarm. What do you use to check for unauthorized connections, and data siphoning?
You do know that a firewall doesn’t protect against connections that are established by stupid choices on your part, right?
Do you examine your computer yourself to make sure you don’t have an active virus that your virus checker can’t see?
Do you know how?
“…stupid choices on your part…”
As we say in the physical protection biz, the cyber world is pretty easy- most security breaches occur about 24″ inches from the monitor.
I take pictures of everything.
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Everything?
I don’t know about you lot, but I’ve been fapping non-stop. Have you seen J-Law with a massive load on her face? WTF?
Pretty much all the pics are high quality even though they were taken either on cell phones or stock standard cameras. Plus the poses are very staged and you see that although the backgrounds are not prepped, the girls obviously took a bit of time to get ready and practice their poses. What am I saying…?
What I’m saying is that the pics look too good to be random, off the cuff selfies and too bad to be professional photo shoot quality. It’s like these celebs sit around nude in their LA mansions all day and have faceless people snap photos of them.
Conspiracy theory….perhaps…to be continued….