In a live studio interview at Beacon Hill, host Gene and security expert Robert Siciliano discuss the recent leak of nude celebrity photos and what it reveals about cloud security. Siciliano defines the cloud as off‑site data centers owned by large corporations (e.g., Apple, Microsoft) where users’ emails, photos, and backups reside. He explains that any device set to sync—smartphones, laptops, or even a regular camera’s files uploaded to a computer—can automatically store data in the cloud, depending on user settings. The conversation touches on speculation that the Find My iPhone/iCloud service may have been a vector for the breach, noting that while iPhone hijacking has occurred, a direct iCloud hack is considered unlikely. Siciliano emphasizes that the cloud is generally a security asset when managed properly: use strong passwords, enable two‑factor authentication, and maintain redundant local and off‑site backups. He argues that avoiding the cloud entirely creates greater risk, and the incident underscores the need for better personal digital hygiene rather than abandoning cloud services.
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Alright, Shannon, thank you. We've all heard of the cloud, but most of us really don't know what it is or how it works. Nude photos of Hollywood starlets were posted online, whereas hackers broke through the cloud and gained access to the pics and put them out there for everyone to see. Robert Siciliano is a McAfee online security expert. He joins us live at our Beacon Hill studio this morning. Robert, great to see you again. Good morning. Um, explain what the cloud is, if you would.
So the cloud really is just the internet as a whole, and it's where corporations house large servers that that have our information, generally in climate-controlled buildings. So the cloud really is physical buildings that are offsite, you know, meaning off our site, like off a homeowner site or even off a smaller corporation site, and it's data that's being stored by a big company like Apple or Microsoft or somewhere else.
Do we all have cloud? Are we all part of the cloud and maybe not even realize it?
Well, if you have Yahoo Mail, if you have Hotmail, if you have Gmail, that's all cloud. If you have iCloud from Apple, that's cloud as well.
So what about, uh, reports we're hearing this morning that the Find My iPhone app may have been what left these stars vulnerable and had those pictures exposed?
Well, that's certainly a possibility. There have been iPhones that have been hijacked in the past or held for ransom as a result of the i— uh, Find My iPhone application. Uh, and, uh, that could be a possibility as how these, uh, celebrities' photos have been compromised. You know, whether or not iCloud itself has been hacked, meaning penetrated, uh, is debatable. Mean that the firewalls essentially, or the security of iCloud, was compromised. And honestly, that's very doubtful.
Now, a lot of folks are saying, well, these stars should have known better about where they put their pictures. But if they think they're safe, I mean, is it, is it a case, Robert, if I take a picture with my cell phone of anything, does it automatically go to the cloud?
So that picture on your phone could also be on your desktop or your laptop. It can also be stored in the cloud, all depending on your settings and how everything is being synced, whether or not you're syncing your iPhone photos to iCloud, uh, is an option that you may choose to pay for or not. Uh, and honestly, all of the devices, whether it's a laptop or desktop, your iPhone itself or iCloud, are all vulnerable depending on the security of your devices, the passwords you may or may not have set up.
So if I take a regular— a picture with a regular camera, let's say, and then I put it on my home computer or my laptop, it could be going to the cloud as well. So anything you put up there could be going to the cloud. If you are using it.
Yes, exactly. So whenever you store something on your home device, you know, your desktop, if you're syncing it, if you're backing it up to a backup server, that's the cloud.
How do you get off the cloud?
So depending on how you back up your information, like for example, I have local backup, which means I have local hard drives, and I back up my stuff, you know, it's locally, but I also back it up via iCloud, and I also back it up via a third-party backup. So I have redundant multiple backups just in case, you know, say say my house burns down, which would be the worst-case scenario, but you want to have it offsite so that, you know, you have backups for this stuff. All corporations have redundant backups, say, for natural disasters, you know, hurricane, tornado, fires, and they have it backed up. Like, you want your bank to back up your stuff in the cloud offsite just in case your bank goes down. So not having stuff in the cloud is more of a liability than having it in the cloud.
So people who hear this story and they're like, I'm a little reluctant here, you're saying, you know what, the cloud is probably a smart thing to do in spite of what's happened here.
You want your bank to back up your data, right? Like, if they lose your information, that would be a bad thing. You want your hospital to back up your data. You want them to have that in case the hospital goes down. So the cloud is a good thing. You just have to manage your— your credentials and your passwords and your security so that it isn't compromised.
And the lesson learned here we should have learned a long time ago. The right to privacy in the digital age, now a bygone era, I guess.
Yeah, and stop taking naked photos and putting them online.
Yeah, well, that would be a good lesson to learn too. Robert Siciliano, we always appreciate your expertise, Robert.
