Famous people like their security and privacy, right? They have things like bodyguards and assistants and publicists and live in gated communities. So when cases like that of Christopher Chaney — the man who allegedly hacked into the accounts of more than 50 people, including Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis and Christina Aguilera — we are totally baffled. That’s why we called up CNET correspondent Declan McCullagh, who shed some light on how famous people’s nekkid pics wind up all over the Web.
Part of the fault, it seems, lies in the celebs themselves, who might be using obvious passwords or easily discovered facts for their password reset questions, Declan told us.
“Let me give you an example: How do I find your mother’s maiden name, or how do you find my mother’s maiden name? Not easily,” he said. “But for Scarlett Johansson, I can just look at Wikipedia. Do I know your pet’s name? No, and you probably can’t find it online. But Mila Kunis might have her pet’s name mentioned in a magazine profile. So the more famous you get, the more information is out there. And a lot of websites a lot of social networking sites and email providers use things like your mother’s maiden name or your pet’s name or where you went to high school as questions that will let you get access to your account if you forget your password. This is a bit of a security risk.”
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