Cloud security: Is there any such thing?
Like it or not, technology is becoming ever more reliant on the cloud, and that has both positive and negative ramifications. On the positive side, cloud computing has opened up a whole new world of productivity that didn’t fully exist before services like Google Docs and Office 365 came into view. On a more personal scale, the cloud flipped the entertainment industry on its head with online music lockers that make it possible to access playlists and rock out to your ZZ Top albums wherever there’s an internet connection. Whether for work or play, living in the cloud can be truly awesome, but what happens when the sky starts falling?
Unfortunately, playing in the cloud isn’t always sunshine and rainbows, a point recently underscored when Mat Honan over at Wired fell victim to a band of hackers who weaselled their way into his Apple iCloud account. Honan recounted in frightening and fascinating detail how the cyber scoundrels took advantage of iCloud’s lack of a two-factor authentication process to access his account and remotely delete the data on his MacBook, iPad, and iPhone. Childhood pictures of his daughter and everything else he had stored on his mobile devices were wiped clean.
If you’re wondering exactly how this was possible, Honan’s investigation, which involved chatting with one of the hackers involved, takes readers through a thrilling tale of how various online services – in this case, Amazon, Gmail, iCloud, and Twitter – reveal just enough personal information to pose a threat to one another if a hacker is truly determined. The devil isn’t in the details, however, it’s in our reliance on cloud computing, and sometimes there’s hell to pay.
