Opinion: Should Apple be more aggressive in its defensive PR to correct misleading allegations?<div class="feat-image">
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<p>When the <a href="
http://9to5mac.com/2014/08/31/countless-celebrity-nude-photo-leaks-being-blamed-on-supposed-icloud-hack/" target="_blank">celebrity nudes story[/url] broke back in 2014, it was headline news in the mainstream media. The story was that ‘iCloud had been hacked.’ The truth, of course, was a little different. As we <a href="
http://9to5mac.com/2014/09/03/opinion-after-the-celebrity-hacks-the-vulnerability-that-still-exists-and-what-needs-to-be-done/" target="_blank">suspected at the time[/url], and Apple <a href="
http://9to5mac.com/2014/09/04/tim-cook-addresses-icloud-photos-hacking-says-major-security-improvements-coming-soon/" target="_blank">later confirmed[/url], the ‘hack’ wasn’t really any such thing. A combination of two techniques were used to gain access to the iCloud accounts.</p>
<p>First, phishing: sending emails designed to look like they were from Apple asking the celebrities to login to their accounts, and directing them to a fake website made to look like the real thing. Second, guessing the answers to security questions – something easier to do with celebrities given the amount of biographical information available in the public domain.</p>
<p>That’s not to say Apple was entirely blameless. iCloud did not, at the time, offer two-factor authentication. Given that an iCloud backup is a near-complete copy of all the data stored on an iPhone, that was something which should have been included from the start. But the bottom-line is that iCloud itself wasn’t really hacked in any meaningful sense of the word.</p>
<p>It was <a href="
http://9to5mac.com/2016/03/15/celebrity-icloud-nude-photos-leak-hacker-charged/" target="_blank">this week confirmed[/url] that phishing was the approach taken by the main offender in this case. In other words, nothing whatsoever to do with iCloud security. This news hasn’t resulted in a single headline in the mainstream media. The average non-tech person out there still believes ‘iCloud was hacked’ …</p>
<p> <a href="
http://9to5mac.com/2016/03/17/opinion-apple-pr-allegations/#more-423426" class="more-link">more…[/url]</p>
Filed under: <a href='
http://9to5mac.com/category/opinion/'>Opinion[/url] Tagged: <a href='
http://9to5mac.com/tag/aapl/'>AAPL[/url], <a href='
http://9to5mac.com/tag/apple-inc/'>Apple Inc[/url], <a href='
http://9to5mac.com/tag/apple-pr/'>Apple PR[/url], <a href='
http://9to5mac.com/tag/bendgate/'>bendgate[/url], <a href='
http://9to5mac.com/tag/celebrity-nudes/'>celebrity nudes[/url], <a href='
http://9to5mac.com/tag/fapgate/'>Fapgate[/url], <a href='
http://9to5mac.com/tag/icloud/'>icloud[/url], <a href='
http://9to5mac.com/tag/iphone/'>iPhone[/url], <a href='
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Opinion: Should Apple be more aggressive in its defensive PR to correct misleading allegations?
