Following reports of hackers accessing the Apple iCloud accounts of famous female celebrities and stealing their private photos, many users have become concerned about their own cyber security.
Among those who were victimized in the latest cyber attack incident are Kate Upton, Jennifer Lawrence, Avril Lavigne, Hayden Panettiere and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, The Star reported.
According to the actresses, their photos were stolen from their iCloud accounts, a cloud storage service from Apple.
Despite the alarming incident, there are simple ways users can follow to protect their personal information on iCloud, according to Time.
The first step is to use a two-step authentication process. In this procedure, users must answer two questions before they can access their accounts.
The first question usually requires users to type in a password. For the second question, they will have to retrieve an authentication code from either an email or text message.
This is an effective deterrent against hackers because even if they are able to guess the users' iCloud passwords, they will have a hard time accessing the phones or email accounts to get the codes.
The next method is using different passwords for various devices and accounts. Although this may seem like an obvious security measure, many people rely on using the same password.
The danger here is that once the hacker learns the password, he or she can easily access all of the user's accounts and devices.
Lastly, when deleting photos and other sensitive information, users should check their iCloud and not just their devices.
After the hacking incident on Winstead's account, the actress said that the photos that had been leaked were deleted from her phone long ago, the Irish Examiner reported.
Unfortunately, cloud services function as digital storage spaces that automatically back up the files of the device.
This means even though a file has been deleted from the computer or smartphone, it still exists in the cloud account. The safest method is to make sure the account has been deleted from all accounts and devices.
