Apple releases statement regarding iCloud Photo Leak

Apple has released a statement on their Web site on Tuesday about the celebrity photo leak over the weekend which resulted in nude pictures of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and others being shared on the Internet.

The company confirmed that after 40 hours of investigation, certain celebrity accounts were compromised by targeted attacks.

The statement in full from the site:

Update to Celebrity Photo Investigation

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 at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4232.

The FBI is also conducting its own investigation into the matter.

Does this sound like Apple is blaming the celebs like Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton for the breach? Like they didn't have a good password or something.

As a person who works with computers everyday -- this is PR BS from Apple as usual. There are some basic security procedures that they could have implemented that would prevent the type of attacks they mentioned which has nothing to do with simply having a hard to guess password.