e-News® | The NEWS Company…: Hacker claims responsibility for coordinating team which stole nude photos of 101 celebrities
The FBI and Apple have opened an investigation into how nude photographs were intercepted and leaked from the private accounts of scores of female celebrities. A number of the hacked stars have confirmed the authenticity of the images, including the actress Jennifer Lawrence, best known for her role in the Hunger Games films, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who starred in popular horror films such as Final Destination 3.
Apple initially declined to comment on reports that the photos came from celebrities’ iCloud accounts, but last night company spokeswoman Nat Kerris told Reuters: “We take user privacy very seriously and are actively investigating this report.”
An FBI spokesman said that it was “aware of the allegations” and “addressing the matter”, the Associated Press reports. Online security experts have raised questions over the safety of “cloud” storage sites.
“It is important for celebrities and the general public to remember that images and data no longer just reside on the device that captured it,” Ken Westin, security analyst at Tripwire told the BBC. “Although many cloud providers may encrypt the data communications between the device and the cloud, it does not mean that the image and data is encrypted when the data is at rest.
“If you can view the image in the cloud service, so can a hacker,” Westin said.
One anonymous user of the porn website AnonIB claimed responsibility for coordinating a group of hackers to steal the celebrities’ private pictures, the Daily Mail reports. The user said he or she would be moving to a new location and would then post more photos.
“Guys, just to let you know I didn’t do this by myself,” the user wrote. “There are several other people who were in on it and I needed to count on to make this happened [sic]. This is the result of several months of long and hard work by all involved. We appreciate your donations and applaud your excitement.
“I will soon be moving to another location from which I will continue to post”. It is not yet known whether the poster’s claims are genuine.
