Uh oh. Pandemonium ahead as photos that show Candice Swanepoel, Avril Lavigne, Cara Delevigne, Ariana Grande, Kate Upton, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and more than 100 other Hollywood stars nude have leaked online.
The international scandal is the work of a 4Chan user, who allegedly hacked private iCloud memories and successfully recovered deleted nude photos of an array of celebrities. Not only is the hacker planning to release them in exchange for some BitCoins, he/she also released a master list of A-list Hollywood celebrity names of whom were hacked. Yup, these celebs’ naked pictures are now in the hacker’s possession:
Goes to show that even if you don’t post incriminating things on the internet, it doesn’t mean that what is in the digital stratosphere won’t even be found. iCloud is a service that’s designed to allow iPhone, iPad, and Mac users to synchronise images, settings, calendar information, and other data between devices. While convenient and generally physical space-saving, the service has been criticised for being unreliable and confusing.
And now, it appears that it’s easily hackable too.
Oscar-winning “The Hunger Games” star Jennifer Lawrence is just one of the many who has fallen victim to this huge invasion of privacy. Not only has she had her privacy invaded, the scandal seemed to have befallen her big time as the hacker claims to have explicit videos of Lawrence, and claims to have over 60 nude selfies of the actress. Upon hearing the news, she took to Twitter to say:
Jennifer Lawrence’s reps have since commented on the scandal, stating, “This is a flagrant violation of privacy. The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence.”
Actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead also addressed the scandal on Twitter:
Meanwhile, an individual close to singer Ariana Grande told CNN photos claiming to show her are “completely fake”.
Ariana has also taken to Twitter to respond to a fan:
Victoria Justice, too, said that pictures purporting to be her are fake. Other affected celebrities’ reps have yet to comment.
This is, of course, not the first time a celebrity hacking attack has happened. In 2005, hackers logged into Paris Hilton’s phone and stole her pictures. They were reportedly able to break into her phone by correctly guessing the not-so-secret answer to her security question, which was “tinkerbell”, the name of her pet Chihuahua. But Paris is not entirely new to naked photos or videos of her circulating on the interwebs, of course.
In 2012, a judge sentenced Christopher Chaney of Florida to 10 years in federal prison in for stealing nude photos, scripts, and personal information from the e-mail accounts of 50 entertainment industry figures, including movie stars Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis, and singer Christina Aguilera.
More to come as this story unfolds.
