As the world of celebrity gossip has grown exponentially in recent years, one of the most notorious events to happen was “TheFappening” leak of celebrities' iCloud photos. On August 31st, 2014, numerous nude images and videos of over 100 celebs were released online. This spread quickly through social media, becoming one of the most talked-about incidents of the year. Since then, “TheFappening” has become an infamous part of internet lore – but also a sobering lesson for all those with personal data stored in the cloud. While some viewed it as a breach of security resulting from weak encryption on iCloud accounts, others viewed it as an outright attack on the privacy and dignity of celebrity personas. Nonetheless, it is fair to say that this incident served as a major wakeup call for people regarding who had access to their information and how secure it was. Although reputations have been irrevocably damaged due to ‘TheFappening’ leak, not all has been lost. The conversations that resulted from this incident provided valuable insights into how personal data can be storing safely while maintaining privacy rights. One outcome was increased investment in digital rights management technologies and online safety measures so that security breaches such as these would be far less likely going forward. Overall, ‘TheFappening’ iCloud photo leak will remain an unforgettable event in our collective memory – but its ripples throughout society have certainly caused us to take cybersecurity more seriously than ever before. From private companies to large enterprises, steps are being taken to ensure higher levels of protection when storing personal data online. As technology continues to develop at a rapid pace, let us hope that other leaks similar to ‘TheFappening’ will be far less frequent going forward.
