The recent iCloud hack might have allegedly only targeted celebrities, but Apple is trying to reassure users that it is beefing up security for everyone.
Apple CEO Tim Cook promised new push notifications and email alerts will be sent to users when someone tries to change their account password. At the same time every time users will also be notified whenever a new device access their iCloud account.
The system should go live within the next two weeks. In top of informing users of any suspicious activity they will also be able to change their password or inform Apple of the problem.
Apple hopes these new measures will prevent users from being blindsided by another phishing attack attempting to break into accounts to steal photos and data.
Half measures
Cook also did a bit of damage control noting that no Apple IDs or passwords were compromised in last weekend's embarrassing leak of private celebrity photos.
Moving forward Cook said he believes informing users of security breaches will more effective against hacking attacks rather than a technological solution.
"When I step back from this terrible scenario that happened and say what more could we have done, I think about the awareness piece," Cook said in his interview with The Wall Street Journal. "I think we have a responsibility to ratchet that up. That's not really an engineering thing."
The Cupertino company also plans encourage more users to enable "two-factor authentication" when logging into their accounts. When turned on the security system asks for an extra bit of information - such as a four-digit texted to the user's cellphone number – to ensure the person trying to access iCloud is actually the account owner.
Supposedly if the affected celebrities activated system it would have prevented the hackers from being able to force their way though by guessing iCloud passwords over and over again. Too little, too late it seems
