VietNamNet Bridge –  Recent attacks on iCloud.com that resulting in theft of privage information was caused by iPhone users’ habit of sharing Apple’s accounts and other accounts for other online services.

Nude photos of Hollywood stars were leaked through their iCloud accounts, which sparked concern about cloud services, especially Apple’s iCloud service.

On 4chan forum, where celebrities’ nude photos were posted before they were spread out on internet sites, hackers said that iCloud was the source of the materials.

People speculated that there was a flaw in iCloud.

However, Apple has denied that its system was hijacked, saying that private information was lost because of users’ mistakes.

In a press release on the morning of September 3, Hanoi time, Apple said that its staff could not find any illegal invasion into the iCloud server system.

This means that no hacker could control the system to steal Hollywood stars’ nude photos.

“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,” the press release said.

Ngo Tuan Anh, deputy chair of BKAV, Vietnam’s largest security solution firm, believes that the main cause as the users’ habit of sharing Apple’s accounts with other accounts for online services.

Taking full advantage of this, hackers used the hacked accounts to access iCloud.com to steal information.

“A lot of accounts were hacked during recent attacks, including the attack on eBay where 140 million accounts were hacked,” he explained in Buu Dien newspaper.

The users’ carelessness in using Apple’s accounts was believed to be the reason that led to the information security problems.

The Washington Post believes that Apple tried to blame users instead of admitting the insecurity of its system. Meanwhile, The Next Web said Apple is quietly fixing the flaw in Find My iPhone.

Nguyen Minh Duc, an internet security expert from FPT,  Vietnam’s largest information technology group, said illegal access can be caused by both the service supplier and users.

In most cases, the problem is caused by users themselves. They may set up simple passwords which can be easily predicted. They may also be cheated by hackers, who lure them to install spyware that can steal passwords on computers, or they may click on links that forge iCloud, where passwords are exposed to hackers.

Duc said that iCloud users should protect their accounts by setting up strong passwords with at least nine characters, including numerals, letters and special characters.

Nguyen Hong Phuc, an independent security expert, noted that the growing usage of cloud computing services could be a threat to users as private information security depends entirely on service providers.