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Apple: Breach 'not behind leaked celebrity photos,' firm says

The leaking of explicit celebrity photos and videos was not the result of breaches in the security of Apple's computer systems, the company has said.

The US tech giant said none of the cases it had so far investigated were a result of its iCloud or Find my iPhone systems being hacked but as a result of a "very targeted attack" on the security procedures of celebrity accounts.

Stars including actress Jennifer Lawrence have threatened to take legal action over the release of the photos.

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Naked celebrity hack 'could have been password attack'

The online hack which led to the posting of hundreds of explicit photographs of celebrities online could have been a password attack.

Hollywood stars including Jennifer Lawrence and model Kate Upton saw intimate photos posted on forum site 4chan on Sunday.

Hunger Games actress Jennifer Lawrence confirmed the pictures posted of her are real. Credit: Reuters

Initial reports concluded Apple's iCloud service had been compromised to access the images.

But a piece of computer code that repeatedly guesses passwords has been found online.

The script was posted to software site GitHub which apparently uses the top 500 most common passwords approved by Apple to try and gain access to user accounts.

If successful, it would give the hacker full access to the iCloud account, and therefore photos.

Apple have now apparently "patched" or fixed the bug. A posted update later said: "The end of the fun. Apple has just patched."

The technology giant is yet to make any comment on the incident.

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Apple: Breach 'not behind leaked celebrity photos,' firm says

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