Celebs Hacked, Nude Pics Posted Online

Those of you who were perusing the Web on Sunday likely noticed an influx of chatter about Jennifer Lawrence and other young celebrities. The reason? A hacker dropped dozens of nude images of the Oscar-winning actress and other stars online.

The leak appears to have originated on 4chan and quickly made the rounds on Reddit, Twitter, Imgur, and other corners of the Web. Reps for some of the celebs have confirmed their authenticity, while others say the photos are fake.

How did the hacker obtain all these images? There have been reports that a hack of Apple's iCloud is to blame, though Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Update: Apple says the hack did not include a breach of iCloud or Find My iPhone.)

As noted by Engadget, a bug within Find My iPhone was revealed just one day before the photo leak. Apparently, the service did not use bruteforce protection, allowing hackers to guess different passwords without being locked out.

"If this was the flaw used, the hackers would have needed email addresses of celebrities," Engadget pointed out. "But, it's possible that only one address is needed, allowing to search inboxes for those of others in a domino effect."

Ultimately, the so-called iBrute bug was patched shortly before the leak.

The end of fun, Apple have just patched FindMyIphone bug. So ibrute is not applicable any more.

— HackApp (@hackappcom) September 1, 2014

With iCloud, photos snapped on an iOS device can be backed up to the cloud, other iOS devices, or your PC via Photo Stream.

"When you turn on My Photo Stream on your devices, all new photos you take or import to those devices will automatically push to your photo stream," according to Apple. "New photos that you take automatically upload to your photo stream when you leave the Camera app and connect to Wi-Fi. My Photo Stream doesn't push photos over cellular connections."

To see if you have Photo Stream enabled on your iOS devices, navigate to Settings > iCloud > Photos. There, you can select whether you want My Photo Stream and Photo Sharing to be turned on or off.

If you don't want to shut off Photo Stream, you can activate two-factor authentication, which Apple rolled out last year. The optional feature requires users to verify their identities beyond providing their passwords when: signing in to an Apple ID to manage an account; buying something on iTunes, the App Store, or iBooks; or getting Apple ID-related support from Apple.

For more, check out Two-Factor Authentication: Who Has It and How to Set It Up.

The individual or group behind the celeb leaks could face some serious time behind bars if uncovered. In 2012, a Florida man was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for hacking into email accounts belonging to actresses Scarlett Johansson and Mila Kunis, singer Christina Aguilera, and other celebrities.