The man who is believed to have hacked Pippa Middleton's iCloud account and offered to sell her personal photos has been arrested.
Nathan Wyatt's Northamptonshire home, where he lives with his fiancé and her children, was raided this weekend by officers from Scotland Yard. Wyatt was arrested on suspicion of an offence under the Computer Misuse Act, the act which governs hacking and computer exploitation.
The Royal Consort's sister was alerted by law enforcement after 3000 images of her and the Royal family were found being sold online for £50,000. The 3000 photos were apparently offered to The Sun and The Daily Mail via the encrypted messaging app, WhatsApp.
The photos were believed to be taken from the phone's iCloud account. The haul contained photos of various members of the Royal Family. Wyatt is also believed to have gotten his hands on naked photos of Middleton's fiancé, James Matthews. Also believed to be taken are the personal phone numbers of William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Speaking to The Sun newspaper, neighbours expressed shock at the arrest of someone who was thought to be an upstanding citizen.
Mark James, security specialist at ESET told SCMagazineUK.com that while back up features of the iCloud are incredibly useful, “this leads to another problem, your security as always is in the hands of others. Apple will of course do all they possibly can to protect your data but you are responsible to help them with that task. Ensuring your password is fairly complex and definitely not used on any other site should be the basics. I appreciate it's hard to remember all those logins but with the plethora of password managers available these days, it is much easier to manage.”
Hacks on the iCloud have offered up more sensitive items before. In 2014, scores of celebrities including actress Jennifer Lawrence and model Kate Upton had their iClouds hacked and their private, often intimate pictures leaked online.
Wyatt has since been bailed.
Brian Spector, CEO of MIRACL told SC: “Although this is another horrible invasion of celebrity privacy, maybe at least the hack of Pippa's iCloud account will remind the general public about the vulnerability of all our digital data.”
He added, “all users, celebrities or not, need to be aware of the value of their personal data on the web, and take steps to protect it. “
