REUTERS/Aly Song
A man looks at his Apple iPad in front an Apple logo outside an Apple store in downtown Shanghai March 16, 2012.
Dozens of nude photos were first released on anonymous message boards AnonIB and 4chan over the weekend. There are a lot of theories about how this could have occurred, but one of the most prominent suggests multiple hackers spent months getting into the seemingly-secure accounts, either because they were hired to steal the photos or so they could trade the images for other things online, like more nude photos or Bitcoins.
Celebrities who were hacked include Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence, singer Ariana Grande and model Kate Upton.
Apple seems to be denying responsibility, although it says it was "outraged" to learn of the breach. It spent 40 hours investigating the situation and concluded:
"None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple's systems including iCloud or Find my iPhone."
Apple is continuing its investigation and working with law enforcement officials to uncover more information.
Here's Apple's full statement:
We wanted to provide an update to our investigation into the theft of photos of certain celebrities. When we learned of the theft, we were outraged and immediately mobilized Apple's engineers to discover the source. Our customers' privacy and security are of utmost importance to us. After more than 40 hours of investigation, we have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet. None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple's systems including iCloud® or Find my iPhone. We are continuing to work with law enforcement to help identify the criminals involved.
To protect against this type of attack, we advise all users to always use a strong password and enable two-step verification. Both of these are addressed on our website athttp://support.apple.com/kb/ht4232.