As the celebrity photo hacking scandal, dubbed by some as the fappening, seems to be drawing to a close, we’re sure many in celebdom will be breathing a sigh of relief.
In its wake the scandal has left plenty of embarrassment, no shortage of accusations, a number of concerns about online privacy and some pretty serious questions about Internet security.
So what should we have learnt about this entire thing to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again?
By this, we don’t mean relying on the obligatory account password. If the celebrity photo leak scandal has taught us anything, it’s that passwords are not a 100% fail safe against intrusions.
When the scandal first became public, many fingers pointed accusingly towards the Apple iCloud service where many of the photos apparently taken from. Despite the iCloud service being far from perfect in terms of security, Apple quickly investigated and determined that their service was not compromised, and that if any accounts were breached it was because of relatively low-tech methods of guessing passwords or resetting the passwords by managing to access the account owners associated email account.
Whilst many may feel securing their account by going any further than setting a password isn’t there responsibility, it is something you absolutely need to do. Of course ensuring your password is long, contains uppercase letters & numbers and isn’t used on other accounts is important, but there are other things you should do as well.
Most online accounts, including Facebook and [now] iCloud offer two-factor authentication methods, meaning if you try to login to your account from a new device you will also need to provide a second way of confirming it is you trying to log in.
Typically this means having a PIN number sent to your phone each time you login from a new “untrusted” device, which you have to enter into the website after you enter your password. This provides a second authentication that it is you. Whilst few websites make this a mandatory step, it is still something you really need to think about turning on.
So for example is a criminal manages to get your password, or reset your password, even after they try and login they’ll be asked to enter a PIN number (since the criminal will be on an untrusted device) which will be sent to a phone they don’t have.
Of course this means also ensuring your phone is secure and safe at all times as well!
Accounts that you should consider making extra secure include online banking, social media, online storage and email accounts.
Many a victim of the celebrity scandal were likely caught out by a host of scams aimed at tricking users into handing over their account information. These scams are often surprisingly low-tech and aged, yet still must retain a significant success record since we still get reports of new variants almost every single day.
It is important to educate yourself to the variety of online traps out there aimed at tricking you into handing over sensitive information into the hands of scammers.
We’re going to list the most popular identity theft scams out there that were most likely used by the celebrity scandal hackers and similar criminals and link to it from this page, so make sure you follow our Facebook and Twitter pages to get that article as soon as we post it.
It has been reported that a number of iPhone users were not even aware that their photos were even being uploaded to the iCloud online service, so they didn’t even know they were on the Internet in the first place.
Android users aren’t safe as well, since Google has a similar feature with their cloud storage and Google+.
It is important not to skip over messages or phone features that concern your private information without first reading and understanding them. If you don’t like having your photos automatically uploaded to the interwebs then make sure you turn the feature off.
The same applies to other devices like tablets and services like Instagram (which connects quite intimately to Facebook) – understand the privacy features on each of the platforms you are using to ensure how your information is used and where it is available.
What we’ve learnt from the recent celebrity scandal is that it is both the user and the service they use that are responsible for their account safety. Don’t skip on security, you may regret it later!
Taking naked selfies of yourself? Read our ultimate guide [on how to keep them safe] here.
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