These emails instruct the target to call the hacker, who is posing as a legitimate organization. They typically send out personalized emails claiming that the recipient has won a prize or is eligible for an award. Hackers who employ phishing methods attempt to trick their targets into giving away their account information. They begin with the most likely options, and these options are supplied by their background research. Once they have enough information, they use an unlimited number of attempts in order to access the system by trying every possible answer. Specifically, they are looking for the answers to common security questions like “What was the name of your first boyfriend/girlfriend?” or “What is your mother’s maiden name?” These include social engineering, phishing, and brute force.īrute force attacks involve hammering the system.
The iCloud hackers used a variety of common techniques to gain access to their victims’ private information. Instead, the company said that phishing or brute force attacks were responsible for the breach. However, it claimed that the hackers did not exploit any specific iCloud vulnerabilities. As a result, the hackers were able to break into their victims’ accounts by flooding the service with log-in attempts.Īpple appears to have solved this problem. There were no consequences for trying numerous attempts, and the hackers were not locked out after a number of tries. How the 2014 Attack OccurredĪfter the news broke about the theft of the celebrities’ photos, Apple said that the incident was “a targeted attack on user names, passwords, and security questions.” While the exact details of the incident are unknown, many believe that it was due to an iCloud vulnerability.Īccording to this theory, a security flaw in the Find My iPhone service allowed hackers to repeatedly guess a user’s log-in information. Even after two years, there are still significant security problems facing iCloud.
Wozniak’s warnings and the attack against Honan foreshadowed the recent security breach. According to Honan, the hackers gained access via Apple tech support and used social engineering to bypass his account’s security questions. Shortly thereafter, hackers broke into Wired journalist Mat Honan’s iCloud account. In 2012, company co-founder Steve Wozniak warned of the “horrible problems” with cloud computing. Several Anon-IB members said that they had been targeting their acquaintances, and complained that the theft of the celebrities’ photos brought attention to a vulnerability that they had been exploiting for years.Īpple has had problems with iCloud security for quite some time. Some of these hackers bragged about their crimes on Anon-IB, an anonymous image board that is well-known as a forum for cyber criminals. In addition to celebrities, iCloud hackers also targeted people that they knew in their personal lives. The security breach sparked a huge debate about cyber security and Apple’s products. They stole a huge amount of private photos, and have already leaked hundreds of them online. In August 2014, several hackers announced that they had broken into dozens of celebrities’ iCloud accounts.
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