14 DAY TRIAL // The Fappening saga started in 2014 when hackers managed to breach the cloud accounts of tens of celebrities only to steal private content that eventually reached the web on a growing number of mirrors, making it pretty much impossible to erase it.
X-rated photos, nude videos, and messages, all were extracted from hacked accounts, showing once again how important it is not to fall for the simplest hacking methods and to always, but always, use complex passwords that shouldn’t be shared with anyone.
Despite hackers involved in the Fappening breach already arrested, nude photo leaks keep happening these days, with more stars across the world seeing their own private content becoming public and accessed by millions of Internet users.
This week, for instance, pictures of Drake Bell got leaked, a few weeks after accounts of Peter Andre and wife Emily, Blac Chyna, and Charissa Thompson were breached and their files had the same fate. You’d think that celebrities pay more attention to their data following the 2014 hacking scandal, but as it turns out, this isn’t happening. And as I see it, it all comes down to just three different basic reasons.
People still take nude photos
Nude leaks take place pretty much because nude content exists in the first place. That’s true, hackers do manage to breach celebs’ accounts, but if nothing worth stealing is stored in the cloud, no embarrassing leak can actually happen.
There are probably reasons to take such photos and this article isn’t supposed to judge anyone, but if adult pics exist in the first place, they really shouldn’t be taken with a device connected to the Internet. Of if they are, at least make sure that it’s secure and the data is somehow protected.
Unfortunately, customers put too much trust in the way companies handle their data and neglect even the most basic security practices, leaving their data exposed and more or less facilitating such breaches.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the customer is the only to blame entirely, but they certainly play a key role in this whole hacking saga.
Hacking methods are more complex
On the other hand, hackers are also turning to more complex techniques to steal credentials and gain access to cloud accounts storing these photos.
Most of the Fappening breaches happened with phishing scams that involved emails looking legitimate and asking for passwords resets. Hackers hosted pages seemingly powered by Apple on third-party servers and prompted celebs to enter their credentials, only to then steal them, access accounts, and extract data stored in the cloud.
Phishing emails are becoming more advanced and could rely on additional methods to make them harder to detect. This is why it’s critical to always check twice before entering your usernames and passwords on websites.
Also, it’s worth keeping in mind that parent companies, like Apple and Google, never ask for your password, so if you receive such an email, there’s a chance it’s a phishing attempt.
Users don’t care about their security
The third reason is more or less derived from the other two because as I said earlier, Internet users don’t care too much or don’t care at all about their security online.
But when sensitive data is involved, like X-rated content, credit card details or simply personal information, there’s absolutely no doubt that at least the basic precautionary methods should be taken.
For example, most of the Fappening leaks happened because the adult photos and videos were uploaded to the cloud as a result of a default setting on the iPhones that celebs used to record this content. By default, the iPhone backs up data to iCloud for obvious reasons, but when credentials are compromised, it’s pretty clear that this data is also exposed.
Simply disabling this feature would have guaranteed the celebrities whose photos were leaked that no such thing was possible. Simply toggling iCloud photo backups off is just a matter of seconds, which shows just how little they cared about their own private pictures.
In the end, leaks like these will undoubtedly continue to happen because the three reasons, which I’m more inclined to call facts, mentioned above will live on for many years from now. The only way they can be prevented is for tech companies themselves to develop more advanced methods to avoid them, though it goes without saying that without users’ help, pretty much everything becomes useless when fighting against hackers.