Tim Cook, CEO of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), reported to the Wall Street Journal that the company may undergo a few changes after the shocking iCloud celebrity hacking incident of 2014. The company has pressed on the fact that the hacking incident wasn’t due to any serious breaches in the iCloud service.

Cook said that hackers tried to gain access to celebrity credentials and were able to correctly guess security passwords. Even though Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) doesn’t accept it, but a few experts think that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iCloud accounts were hacked using iBrute.

Cook continued to say that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has always alerted its users via email and push notifications whenever an account is accessed for the first time using a new iDevices or when someone tries to change his or her password. He says now users should expect more alerts to come their way.

It won’t be just about emails anymore; if the user is online and watching something he or she will get a push notification as soon as someone attempts to change the password of their account.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been a latecomer in letting its consumers know that their messages, contacts, photos and call log were being downloaded by unauthorized users. The company says that it will begin sending these notifications in about two week’s time. It also mentioned that the system will let users take immediate action which includes changing passwords in order to retake account control or alert the company’s security team. It could mean that the users will get alerts and notifications before the iCloud data starts to get downloaded somewhere else, which will allow them to stop the process.

Cook says that human measures are more important than technological measures. He said that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) could have taken a few extra measures to increase consumer awareness about hackers targeting accounts and importance of having strong and safe passwords.

This may be true but Cook sounds like he’s blaming victims for being unaware of the dangers in the world. It would not have mattered how strong their passwords were; if the hackers were able to phish the users then the passwords were given to the hackers when they presented fake information. And if not phished they broke into Apple’s security questions which aren’t that hard to figure out because of Apple’s leniency.

Some celebrities may have had weak passwords but attackers may have used brute force which means they tried different combinations until the right one was reached. Security experts claim that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) made this possible for the hackers because there was no set limit to how many times you could enter a wrong password.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) reports that many of its users do not utilize the two-factor safety precaution; the company plans to stress on it by asking the users to turn it on in the latest iOS. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) may also reveler a list of IP addresses to the users that tried to get into their accounts. It may help them to pick out the one that they are unaware of.

 

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