TheFappening

Celebrities are no strangers to having their data compromised. But, in 2014, a larger-than-normal breach happened and it was quickly dubbed “TheFappening Leaked iCloud photos of nude celebs!”. This cyber attack targeted more than 500 celebrities, resulting in the leak of photos and videos taken from their cloud storage accounts.

At the time of TheFappening’s emergence, these leaks were all over the web and utterly unavoidable; even those seeking to steer clear of adult content found themselves confronted with bare pictures of A-list celebs. In some cases, social media accounts were hacked and private information collected and posted online. This devastating invasion of privacy rocked not only Hollywood but the entire celeb universe – showing that, ultimately, digital data can be used against us all.

The celebrity victims included Oscar winners such as Jennifer Lawrence and Kirsten Dunst alongside supermodels such as Kate Upton, Cara Delevingne, and Emily Ratajkowski amongst others. Most distressing was that many of those affected had been targeted simply due to their reputation or gender rather than any misconduct on their part.

The contents posted included sexual selfies (or ‘nude selfies’), private images taken by paparazzi photographers (mocking named “celebrity-sex-tapes”), explicit videos from Hollywood movies which posed at leaked sex tapes – but mostly screenshots from personal webcams/mobile phones etc.Unfortunately for them, there doesn’t appear to be any shortage of websites dedicated to hosting this adult content without consent; in fact it is distressingly easy to access explicit material about starlets online.

TheFappening Leaked iCloud Photos shows just how vulnerable our online identities are in today’s increasingly interconnected world – where databases are exposed with limited defenses set up against potential attackers. We need to remember that once something is on the internet, it becomes almost impossible remove forever. It’s vital that we remain aware of potential threats out there in digital space – especially if you post anything remotely intimate online!