This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UNCW chapter.
In case you haven’t kept up with the news, more than 100 photos of celebrities were leaked all over the internet. The first reports of this hacking incident reported that the hackers used the celebrities’ iCloud accounts to access the photos, leaving many Apple users in an uproar. Some of the celebrities include: Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Vanessa Hudgens and Hillary Duff. But, before you delete your iCloud account, and certainly before you go searching for each celebrity that was supposedly hacked, consider this:
1. The hackers may have gotten their hands on the photos from a source other than iCloud.
Apple claims that the hackers compromised usernames, passwords and security passwords of these celebrities; they didn’t simply learn how to sneak into iCloud accounts. It is also possible that the hacker sources were actual people that have received the photos themselves. Just because the celebrities are famous doesn’t mean they haven’t made silly decisions.
2. Some of these celebs claim they don’t even use Apple.
One celeb that was supposedly hacked, Trisha Hershberger, claimed that she uses a Droid, which left some of us thinking, “sure you do.” But, she proved that her “leaked” photos were fake with this tweet on August 31:
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3. Celebrity passwords could be easier to guess than your own boyfriend’s.
Most of us use our own personal information to create our passwords. Whether it’s our first street address, birth date or favorite pet, we all have probably used each password more than once. Imagine all of this information and more being posted on fan pages and Wikipedia. Anyone, who has enough time on their hands, could collect biographical information from the internet about celebrities and figure out a password or two.
4. You can help stop the circulation of these photographs.
Celebrities are people too, and besides the fact that they own million-dollar gowns and maybe got to kiss Bradley Cooper on set, they’re not too different from us. Ladies, show respect for your fellow woman and don’t search or repost these photographs on social media. That goes for men, too. You would literally be violating these celebrities by searching for these photographs. Instead of re-posting about this incident, tweet a quote by some of these celebrities that you love. That way, search results like that will pop up on Google as people continue searching the names of these celebs.
5. Make your passwords complicated.
Don’t just make your password “abc123” or the name of your kitten that you post all over Instagram. Make sure that your passwords are a combination of capital and lowercase letters, symbols if possible, numbers, or off-the-wall random things, like the name of your favorite shampoo. Sadly, there may be people out there that care enough about you who may attempt to look at your photos. Why make it easy for them?