Design Pixel Blog

Naked Celebrity Leak Brings the Security of Apple's iCloud into Question

Vulnerabilities in Apple’s iCloud service were thought to be the point that allowed rogue hackers to gain access to a high number of sensitive celebrity photos this week, however in an update from Apple it appears that social engineering was the main method used. It seems that the attacker targeted usernames, passwords, and account recovery features.

Whatever the method of access this brings directly into focus the importance of security in the cloud. Had the people that were the target of the hack - names like Kirsten Dunst of Spider-Man fame, Jennifer Lawrence who stars in the Hunger Games franchise, and others like Kate Upton and Rihanna - actually looked into the service they were using and done their research they would have realised that their files were not safe at all. Not that it’s the victims fault, the blame lands squarely with the perpetrators, however you do have to think about file security just as you would your car or house.

To be anywhere near safe storing files in the cloud, you should be looking at a service provider like Design Pixel that can offer ownCloud services. The ownCloud client that runs on your desktop or mobile device holds the encryption keys to your data, this means even if the actual cloud service holding your digital files is compromised the files themselves cannot be viewed. To decrypt the data the original private key is required. This is the single biggest failing of all the main cloud storage offerings from Google, Apple, and Microsoft. They hold the keys to any file encryption in place.

This kind of thing will happen more and more as people - celebrities, businesses, and others - become more reliant on their mobile devices and cloud storage. There are so many benefits to be gained from storing data in the cloud while on the go, but you should never compromise security in favour of convenience.

Design Pixel offers ownCloud storage accounts at reasonable rates in a private jurisdiction. Not only can your files not be decrypted by us - a true zero-knowledge service - but due to our structure it would be extremely difficult for any subpoena to be served requested data access outside of criminal charges. Sign-up for an account now to secure your private data in the cloud.