On Sunday, nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities began circulating on the Internet, and some reports accused Apple’s iCloud service of automatically backing up user photos and retaining them long after they were deleted from the user’s phone.
If you use iCloud, you may be worried about the photos you back up from your phone – no one wants their personal photos stolen, regardless of their content.
As of now, it’s unclear if this was an iCloud hack or if the photos were accessed through another vulnerability. The FBI and Apple are investigating this incident and we will have more information once the investigation is completed. These steps will prevent your photos from automatically uploading to Apple’s iCloud.
Turn off automatic photo uploads and delete photos from iCloud
If you have an iPhone or iPad, all of your photos are uploaded to iCloud by default. Most people don’t even realize that all their photos are stored on iCloud servers. A quick way to check is to open the Photos app and open the Albums view. All photos in your My Photo Stream album are stored online. Here’s how to stop them from being uploaded there.
1. On iPhone and iPad, do the following: Settings > Photos & Camera > My Photo Stream > Off. Now you will see a warning “Turn off Photo Stream will delete all Photo Stream photos from your iPhone”. Click Delete and the photos in the “My Photo Stream” album will be deleted. This does not affect photos stored locally on the device or other shared photo streams.
2. Mac users can do the same by going to System Preferences > iCloud > Uncheck Photos.
If you want to keep the auto-upload feature but only want to delete some photos from your iCloud account, open Photos > Albums > My Photo Stream > click Select and select the photos you don’t want to store online > click the trash can in the lower right corner.
Stronger passwords
We’ve always been a strong advocate of using strong passwords and using different passwords for different accounts. If your iCloud password is still weak, change it to a stronger password that contains uppercase and lowercase characters, numbers, and symbols. Here’s how.
1. Open the Apple ID page on the Apple website. Sign in and answer two security questions. Now click on Change Password.
2. On your iOS device, open the App Store and scroll to the bottom. Tap Apple ID > Apple ID > Enter password and sign in > Tap Password to enter a new password, then tap Verify to enter it again. Click “Finish” to complete the process.
(See also: Seven ways to create better, stronger passwords)
Two-factor authentication
We also recommend using two-factor authentication with your Apple ID, which sends you a code via text message or the associated Find My iPhone app every time you log in. Without entering this code, no one can log in – even if a hacker is able to guess or crack your password. This means that to access your account, people need to know your username, password, and also need to physically have your phone – which is a bit inconvenient, but adds a lot of security. You can set it up through the Apple ID page.
1. Open the Apple ID page on the Apple website. Sign in and answer two security questions. Now, click “Start” near the top to enable two-factor authentication.
2. Follow the on-screen instructions to save your phone details.
These steps should help you protect your iCloud photos from unauthorized access. For more helpful articles, visit our How To section.
