iCloud

Tim Cook speaks out on recent iCloud hacks, promises new security measures

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Tim Cook sat down with The Wall Street Journal today, but not to talk about how excited Apple is about next week's iPhone event. Instead, the CEO answered questions regarding the recent iCloud scandal, which led to the posting of dozens of nude celebrity photos earlier this week.

Apple has already released a statement on the matter, claiming that iCloud and its subsequent services had not been breached. Cook reiterated those claims today, and added that the Cupertino company plans to rollout a number of new security features to make its devices more safe.

Apple shares drop 4% amidst iCloud security concerns

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Shares of Apple dropped 4% today, closing this afternoon at $98.94. That's the stock's worst percentage slump since late January, and its worst value since it began its march towards its highest price ever in early August.

The news comes amidst the recent iCloud scandal, in which Apple's cloud security was blamed for the leaking of several revealing celebrity photos, and ahead of the company's highly anticipated iPhone event next week.

Celeb hacking tapped law enforcement tools to gain access to data inside device backups

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 3, 2014

The alleged iCloud hacking, which has resulted in a massive leak of hundreds of revealing celebrity photos, has most likely been made possible because attackers reportedly used a piece of software that law enforcement officials rely on to siphon data from iOS device backups, Wired reported last night.

Rather than obtain a user’s iCloud username and password with brute-force attacks, the article points to web forum reports describing using specialized software called Elcomsoft Phone Password Breaker (EPPB) to impersonate the user’s device in order to obtain the full device backup which holds data like photos, videos, application data, contacts, text messages and more.

Apple updates App Store guidelines with new rules for HealthKit and more

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Apple posted an update this evening for its App Store review guidelines—a set of instructions for third-party developers on what iOS apps may or may not contain. Tonight's refresh adds rules for upcoming iOS 8 features such as extensions, HealthKit and HomeKit.

Most of the changes are only pertinent to developers, but there are a few things worth mentioning. Perhaps the most important item, in light of recent events, is that Apple says apps using the HealthKit framework that store user health data in iCloud will be rejected.

Apple sending out AppleSeed invites for Windows iCloud beta

Cody Lee ∙ September 2, 2014

Apple has begun sending out invitations to AppleSeed members this afternoon for a new iCloud for Windows Beta. Introduced at WWDC in June, the app includes iCloud Drive, a new feature that allows you to store and access any file type from any iOS device, Mac or PC.

AppleSeed members who receive the invites must have a PC running Windows 7 or later to participate in the beta, and must accept the terms and conditions. Those who receive the invitation but don't meet the aforementioned requirements can simply ignore the e-mail.

Apple ‘actively investigating’ alleged iCloud hack that led to celeb photo leak

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

After nearly 24 hours of silence, Apple has finally commented on the alleged iCloud hack that led to a massive leak yesterday of nude celebrity photos. The Cupertino-based company says that it is aware of the reports and is "actively investigating" the claim.

"We take user privacy very seriously and are actively investigating this report," Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris told Recode in a statement. She did not, however, provide any additional details on the attack, or if iCloud was even the source of the photos.

Apple reportedly patches Find My iPhone vulnerability to hack Apple ID accounts

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 1, 2014

According to The Next Web this morning, Apple has allegedly patched a security hole in the Find My iPhone service which allowed nefarious users to brute-force Apple ID passwords, according to Twitter user @hackappcom who posted a proof of concept titled 'iBrute' to GitHub on Saturday.

This should be good news for celebrities who reported their iCloud accounts being hacked and saw their nude pictures posted online.

As Cody told you yesterday, Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence and several other celebrities found themselves in the middle of a major nude photo leak after attackers apparently exploited a vulnerability in Apple’s Find My iPhone service.

Hacker leaks dozens of nude celebrity pics in alleged iCloud hack

Cody Lee ∙ August 31, 2014

Twitter, Reddit and several other social networks are blowing up this evening with talk of a major nude celebrity photo leak. The trove first appeared on 4chan's /b/ thread earlier today, and it includes Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence and several others.

The pictures were allegedly retrieved through a vulnerability in Apple's iCloud service, which allowed the celebrities’ phones to be hacked. Thus far, no one has confirmed that iCloud was actually breached, and few details are known about the attack, or the attacker.

New service offers permanent Activation Lock bypass

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 26, 2023

Chronic Unlocks has recently started offering a new service which claims to bypass Activation Lock on iOS devices that have been locked. Although the method used to get around the security measure has yet to be detailed, the service can be helpful for people who bought an iOS device that is still tied to its previous owner's Apple ID. But don't expect the company to help you bypass Activation Lock on a stolen device!

Apple updates Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and iMovie to improve iCloud compatibility

Sébastien Page ∙ August 21, 2014

Apple just updated several of its applications for both iOS and OS X with the usual "stability improvements and bug fixes", but after looking into it more closely, it seems there is more to the updates than the changelog shows, with apparent iCloud compatibility improvements.

Pages, Numbers, and Keynote have all been updated for both iOS and OS X, while iMovie has only been updated for OS X so far. All updates show as "stability improvements and bug fixes," except iMovie for Mac, which "includes iCloud compatiblity improvements for iMovie Theater."

If these update look benign on the surface, it seems they do improve iCloud compatibility...

All iCloud services are currently down for some users [resolved]

Sébastien Page ∙ August 21, 2014

According to Apple System Status, all iCloud services are currently down for some users. The outage has been going on for a little over an hour now with no indication of when the service might be restored.

iCloud services appear to be the only services affected by the outage, which again, doesn't affect all users. Other online services such as FaceTime, iMessage, Siri, and the App Stores are currently working just fine.

Update: System Status page now says all services have been restored.

How to delete old iPhone backups

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated December 24, 2018

Manually backing up your iPhone or iPad, or taking advantage of iCloud automatic backups, is the best way to guarantee that you will be able to get all your data back in the event something goes wrong.

Whether you choose to backup via iTunes or iCloud, you might want to delete this backup at some point. Maybe the backup file got corrupted, or maybe you're running out of storage space on your Mac or in iCloud. Or maybe you have an entirely different reason to delete your iPhone or iPad backup file.

Whatever the reason is, we've got you covered. In this post, we will learn how to delete an iPhone backup from a Mac and we'll also see how to delete a backup file from iCloud.