iCloud hasn’t exactly had the best week. You’ve probably heard that you should enable two-factor authentication on your Apple account (among others) to protect yourself from hackers, but be forewarned: two-factor authentication doesn’t protect your iCloud backups or photos.
As TechCrunch points out, Apple’s official support documentation states that two-factor authentication only protects My Apple ID sign-ins and support, as well as purchases from iTunes, the App Store and iBooks Store. There is no guarantee that anything else on an Apple account is protected by using two-factor authentication, any more than it would be with a regular password…which is a little absurd.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use two-factor authentication, of course. It still protects you to a certain degree. But, contrary to certain rumours, two-factor authentication is not the solution to any iCloud-related photo hacks you may be hearing about.
Apple’s Two Factor Authentication Doesn’t Protect iCloud Backups or Photo Streams [TechCrunch]
Comments
3 responses to “iCloud’s Two-Factor Authentication Doesn’t Secure Your Photos, Backups”
This article is inconsistent within itself…
“There is no guarantee that anything else on an Apple account is protected by using two-factor authentication…” – the word guarantee means it *might* be protected.
However, in the header, etc – you make a definitive statement… So, what’s the story? Read TechCrunch I guess… Where’s the value add?
I don’t agree with your definition of “guarantee”. If it meant “might”, it would be a “conditional guarantee”.
I think @Dan is referring to the overall wording… think of it like this: “there’s no guarantee of winning a car” doesn’t mean you won’t win a car, just that it’s not guaranteed.
So no guarantee that anything else on an Apple account is protected doesn’t mean that they aren’t – just that it’s not guaranteed.