Do you ever wonder how all these celebrities continue to have their
private photos spread all over the internet? While celebrities' phones
and computers are forever vulnerable to attacks, the common folk must
also be wary. No matter how careful you think you were went you sent
those "candid" photos to your ex, with a little effort and access to
public information, your pictures can be snagged, too. Here's how.
Apple's iCloud service provides a hassle free way to store and transfer photos and other media across multiple devices.While
the commercial exemplifies the G-rated community of iPhone users, there
are a bunch of non-soccer moms that use their iPhones in a more..."free
spirited" mindset. With Photo Stream enabled (requires OS X Lion or
later, iOS 5 or later), pictures taken on your iPhone go to directly to
your computer and/or tablet, all while being stored in the cloud.If you think the cloud is safe, just ask Gizmodo reporter Mat Honan.
His iCloud account was hacked by someone who contacted Apple Support
and requested a password reset by working around the security questions
and using available information of Honan's social media accounts. The
hacker remotely wiped all of Honan's devices and hijacked the Gizmodo
Twitter account. Luckily for him, his photos were not of any concern to
the hacker, but other people might not be so lucky.
Email
is one of the most used applications on a person's mobile device. While
remotely hacking into someone's phone and gaining access to their
system files and photos is extremely difficult, hacking into an email
account is much easier. While MMS is usually the method of choice for
those sending images over their phone, many people still use their email
accounts for sharing files.That's
how some "intriguing" photos of Scarlett Johansson ended up all over
the internet last year. The hacker simply found her email address by
trying random iterations of her name in combination with common email
clients like Gmail or Yahoo, and then used the forgotten password
helper. After answering the security questions by using public
information and scouring the internet, he gained access to her email
account, which contained some of her photos.Once a hacker has an email address, the information he or
she now has access to has multiplied. Many people prefer paperless
billing for their obligations, cell phone bills included. On those cell
phone bills is the number of the account holder as well as a ton of
other information like outgoing and incoming calls. And if you are using
Gmail, you can send text messages right inside the email client, making it even easier to get in touch with other contacts.So,
while email hacking might not get you to the images directly, it can
lead you to various sources of information that will get you closer to
your goal, like a cell phone number. With your target's cell phone
number in hand, those photos are within reach.
Sometimes
the cellular provider is the weakest point of defense for a cell phone
user. Both AT&T and Verizon allow user ID's to be the customers
wireless number. If you have the number of the phone, you can use the
"forgot my password" feature to request for a temp password, or even
change the password altogether by either entering a 4 digit pin code,
crackable by brute force, or by answering a few security questions.Studies have shown that most people are terrible at choosing PINs,
so you may not even have to use brute force—just try the list of most
common ones that people use. Once inside the account, you have access to
all the usage and data the phone has sent or received in the latest
billing period.
With
access to the numbers a cell phone has contacted and access to the text
messages that have been sent from it, it's not too hard to spoof someone's number.
Instead of trying to steal the photos off the phone, you can trick them
into sending them directly to you. There are a bunch of cell phone spoofs and Caller ID apps you can use to make your number appear to be someone else's.
While none of these methods are guaranteed, there's a good chance
that one of them (or a combination of a few) will work, unless your
target is more security savvy than the average person. Most of us give
away more information than we know online, and it only takes one
opportunity-minded individual to take advantage of it.
If you do
decide to give it a shot, though, just remember: hacking into someone's
email or cell phone accounts is not only in the moral grey area, it's
also completely illegal, so proceed with caution.
Posts
