A few years ago, major and minor celebrities with less than perfect iPhone and iCloud password-protecting skills, were victims of an extortion racket that demanded ransom for potentially embarrassing pictures lifted from their phones or cloud storage accounts.
A lot of the photos were released anyway, making it the biggest nude celebrity scandal since the invention of the printing press, and reminding everyone that their valiant escapades in the bedroom are never safe from determined eyes, so you'd better not document them in the first place.
Apparently, Samsung's cloud servers that backup its Galaxy phones are now going through the same phase, at least in the home turf of Korea. Hackers have obtained access to contact lists, pictures, videos, and even messages from many a Galaxy-toting celebrity there, says local scene site Dispatch.
They have started demanding payouts ranging from 50 million won (or ~$43,000) to the whopping billion (~$860,000), depending on the celebrity status of the victim. Some are choosing to pay for a piece of mind, others like famed local actor Zhu Zhenmo had their private chats with other celebrities already leaked out.
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After the iCloud hacking scandal, the moral of the story is to hide or encrypt everything sensitive on your phone, Samsung KNOX or not, especially if you are in the person-of-interest camp, if you don't want it making its way out of it at some point. Sorry, no nude pictures this time, but here's a nice inforgraphic how the Samsung Galaxy hack happened, in Korean.
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Daniel, a devoted tech writer at PhoneArena from 2010 to 2025, has been engrossed in mobile technology since the Windows Mobile era. His expertise spans mobile hardware, software, and carrier networks, and he's keenly interested in the future of digital health, car connectivity, and 5G. Beyond his professional pursuits, Daniel finds balance in travel, reading, and exploring new tech innovations, while contemplating the ethical and privacy implications of our digital future.
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