All The Different Ways That 'iCloud' Naked Celebrity Photo Leak Might Have Happened

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ricky l • a second agoRemove

Let examine the statement:-
"the consensus was that Apple's iCloud service was to blame. But how likely is it that Apple's encrypted cloud service led to the mass hack, and what are the other ways that the nude photos could have emerged? iCloud"

Look like iCloud is a public Cloud.

As a Cloud, virtualisation will be the foundation that host the public cloud services.

Thus what are the likely vunlerabilites of a Public Cloud :-
(1) Virtual Machines (VM) - will be used to house the Web, Apps and Database. Vulnerability will be the VM - which can be a flat file that can be copied out. If the VM is used to house the Database or folder that store the pictures - the mass leak is possible.
Security to protect VM - is to encrypt the whole VM as a flat file. Hacker need to break the key to access the VM if the encrypted VM is stolen - by brute force - possible but take a long time - depending on what encryption algorithm used and the strength of the key.

(2) As public Cloud are shared - multi-tenants and VMs are segregated by network Vlans or VPNs or GREs.
The early day Cloud uses Vlans (Virtual LANs) to logically segregate multi-tenants - via physical LAN switch, via Virualisation Logical Switches, via VMs - and used distribute software Virtual firewall, or physical virtual firewall or even using Layer 3 LAN switches to route between the VLANs.
Weakness :- as the multi-tenants are sharing the same logical trunk - VLAN hopping used by hackers can jump VLANs and go straight to the unauthorised VLANs to access the VMs to steal the pictures.
Thus, safer method are used - such as GRE (Generic Routing Encapsulation) is used to access the VMs - to build logical tunnel (without sharing logical tunnels) among multi-tenants - thus not possible to jump tunnel.
And even the safest method - is to used encrypted tunnels notabley VPN (Virtual Private Network like IPSec VPN) to access the VMs that uses strong algorithms like AES, 3DES with strong symmetrical keys or asymetrical keys.

(3) In Public Cloud - as virtualisation is used, SAN storage that uses VSAN (Virtual SAN), carving out of LUN, using disk array through RAID will be used to logically group disk arrays to store the pictures.
As logical grouping in SAN like VLANs are vulnerable to jump into unauthorised logical grouping of the disk array, mass stealing of pictures is possible - unless disk storage encryption - by folders, by files are used.
Also backup used in public cloud are likely to be using disk backup instead of tape backup, hacking into the disk backup to access the pictures is also possible - unless again the diskbackup is also encrypted with proper key management - so that the key will not be stolen to decrypt the backup.

(4) Having say so, hacking through the Cloud services to steal the pictures is not easy as total visibility of how the public Cloud iAAS is deployed eg. :-

(a) need to know what server virtualisation are used and how the multi-tenants are carved out.

(b) need to know what is the underlying network virtualisation used - eg. VLAN, VXLAN, VPN,
GRE, VRF, NSX, SDN, vDS, portgroup, carving out of logical network eg. External Network, Organization External Network, Organization Internal Network, Organization Network Pool, vApp Network, Provider vDC, Organization, Organization vDC, vAPP, VMs etc

(c) need to know security devices deployed eg. Virtualised Firewall, secured VMs, NAT, PAT, DNS, DHCP, load balancer, VPN, GRE etc.

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ricky l • a second agoRemove

(d) need to know how storage are deployed eg. SAN switches, SAN storage, VSAN, WWM, zoning, FC, FCOE, LUN, disk arrays, type of RAID, thick or thin provisioning, dedup or hadoop - or using disk backup, or tape backup - through incremental or full backup, any encryption (if yes, what type - eg. 3DES, AES, DES, key management eg. isakmp, key type).

So having say so, the hackers must be a very sophisticated hackers that can navigate to the profound maze of a Cloud Service - to be able to steal and mess hack the pictures.

One easier way - is to compromise the Directory Services of the Cloud accounts that store the account name, id, password and the credential of the cloud tenants - and break the root password of the Directory Service that reside in one of the VM - by stealing and cracking this Directory Service VM - and then with the root password of the Directory Service - can then access all the Cloud Account to steal the pictures of the multiple accounts.

So is public Cloud safe to store private data?


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retroactivism  •  1 hour 50 minutes ago Report Abuse
Orrrr.. the hackers guessed some passwords.

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ricky l • a second agoRemove
Cannot be guessing so many right passwords to do a mess hacking.