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CHARLOTTE, N.C. / CNN – Private photos of actress Jennifer Lawrence, super model Kate Upton and nearly 100 other high-profile women in varying degrees of undress were splashed across the web over the weekend. The pictures were obtained through a massive online hack. Lawrence’s publicist calling it a “flagrant violation of privacy.”
Horror movie actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead tweeted, “To those of you looking at photos I took with my husband years ago in the privacy of our home, hope you feel great about yourselves.” She continued, “Knowing those photos were deleted long ago, I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this…”
Apple is investigating whether it’s online photo sharing service was breached.
Charlotte’s Theresa Payton was Chief Information Officer under President George W. Bush. She is now the CEO of Fortalice, a cyber security consulting company. Payton recommends using strong passwords, linking different email addresses to different social media services and reading the privacy policy. Payton says if it’s a free service, understand that you’re the product for sale. Paid services offer more privacy.
Finally, Payton recommends you enable “two-factor authentication.” She says, “Which means they’ll text you a code to your phone that you have to type into it to make sure it’s really you, try turning that on because that may give you that extra layer of protection and keep the hackers out.”
Lawrence and Upton’s reps say they’ll seek legal action. Payton warns legal trouble could find you if you re-post the pics. She says, “When we re-post these private, personal photos, the bad guys win. So when you see something like this happen, don’t repost it. Instead if you feel like you wanna say something, warn others that the photos are out there and voice your support for the celebrities that they are victims, and this is a crime.”
Hackers also posted photos allegedly showing Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney, singer Ariana Grande and former Nickelodeon actress VIctoria Justice. Maroney, Grande, and Justice have all denied the photos were real.
