The recent exploitation in Apple’s apparently “secure” iCloud service has caused tremendous strain on the authenticity and quality of Apple’s security. As a leading innovative company, the current breach leaves questions unanswered, on how a exploit of this magnitude could occur. Despite Apple taking all responsibility, personal questions arises whether the customers itself have become complacent with using easy and obvious passwords. Although there was a breach in iCloud, statements that Apple has made infers that there was in fact not a breach, but a use of “phishing” that caused the leaking of celebrity photos. I believe that the fault and reason for the breach falls on both the user and the company itself. Many factors may lead us to believe that Apple’s lack of security solely lead to the exploits, however, the lack of creativity and lack of care in security questions and authenticity questions leads to the relatively easy “guess and check” of a password. I am not saying that users are the ones at fault, Apple definitely holds responsibility, I am simply stating that users also played an important role in the recent scandal.
Apple’s entire company image bases itself on innovation and modern relativity. However, how would they manage to uphold such an image with other recent exploitations such as FindMyIphone with the iBrute hack only a few weeks earlier? Apple engineers and programmers seriously need to ramp up security and focus more on the effectiveness of their security systems. These current scandals not only hurts Apple’s image, but also its marketing and Pubic Relations department. They now need to focus on damage control and releasing press statements in order to please their customer base. Apple has a responsibility to uphold security and customer privacy. As an Apple user myself since 2008, I am a strong believer in Apple and its capabilities. These recent continuous scandals, however, has wavered my confidence in Apple as a efficient and leading innovative company.
References:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/01/icloud-bug-fixed_n_5748642.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/03/apple-hack_n_5758792.html