A man has been arrested for allegedly hacking into the iCloud account of Pippa Middleton and stealing around 3,000 personal images.
According to The Sun, the hacker tried to sell the images and data for £50,000. Images included shots of her sister Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and their children and other members of the royal family. More intimate photos were also allegedly offered for sale, including images of Pippa Middleton trying on wedding dresses, and nude images of her fiance.
Reports said the alleged hacker used messaging services WhatsApp and Jabber to communicate with newspapers, and had routed his emails through the website of a Northamptonshire-based garden center to cover his tracks.
The BBC reports that a 35-year-old man from Northamptonshire has been arrested on suspicion of a Computer Misuse Act offence. He has been released on bail until late November while police continue their enquiries, the report said.
This incident brings back memories of the infamous iCloud hack of 2014, where hundreds of celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence and Rihanna, had intimate photographs of them posted online.
More recently, the website of Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones was taken down after it was hacked, and defaced with explicit images of her that were allegedly taken from her iCloud account.
Apple’s introduced two-factor authentication (2FA) as a result of the first wave of celebrity account hacks. 2FA adds another layer of security to online services and websites so that a hacker who may have the password is less likely to gain access. As well as 2FA, users should ensure that every password they use is unique and is changed regularly.
“Although this is another horrible invasion of celebrity privacy, maybe at least the hack of Pippa’s iCloud account will remind the general public about the vulnerability of all our digital data,” commented Brian Spector, CEO of MIRACL.
“All users, celebrities or not, need to be aware of the value of their personal data on the web, and take steps to protect it. Choosing complex passwords and avoiding using the same password for multiple sites is helpful, but it’s hardly user-friendly,” Spector added. “The underlying issue is that the username and password system is old technology that simply cannot secure the deep information and private services that we all store and access online today.”