British singer Adele has suffered a breach of private photos, which includes a scan of her unborn baby and a photo of her three-year-old son.
The tranche also contained pictures from the singer’s childhood and the early days of her career not previously released to the public, according to the Sun on Sunday. The photos are believed to have been accessed by hacking her partner Simon Konecki’s email.
Brit, Grammy and Oscar winner Adele is in the middle of a six-night stint at The O2 Arena in London, as part of a 107-show world tour, and will headline the Glastonbury Festival this summer. The photos were discovered on a Facebook fan page and reported by a whistle-blower.
Jonathan Sander, VP of Product Strategy at Lieberman Software, said: “What's interesting about this breach of Adele's privacy is how closely it follows the pattern typical corporate breaches. They suspect the attacker gained access through a poorly secured partner's access.
“The breach itself was discovered by a third party and reported to the unsuspecting victim. These details closely mirror many corporate breaches and Target in particular, breached through their business partner and told by a third party.”
Mark James, Security Specialist at ESET suspected that the email account was compromised either through a phishing attack or insecure password.
“Email scams are very rife at present and you need to be extra careful when following any link you receive in an email,” he said. “Make sure you have good regular updating internet security software installed, keep your operating system and applications patched and updated and be very mindful of free Wi-Fi points that are not secure.”