Apple confirms celebrity security breach

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Apple released a statement confirming that there was a specific targeted breach of certain celebrities' accounts leading to the posting of nude photos online.

The statement said, "We wanted to provide an update to our investigation into the theft of photos of certain celebrities. When we learned of the theft, we were outraged and immediately mobilized Apple's engineers to discover the source. Our customers' privacy and security are of utmost importance to us. After more than 40 hours of investigation, we have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet. None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple's systems including iCloud or Find my iPhone. We are continuing to work with law enforcement to help identify the criminals involved."

The FBI said Monday that it was addressing allegations that online accounts of several celebrities, including Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence, had been hacked, leading to the posting of their nude photographs online.

The FBI did not say what actions it was taking to investigate who was responsible for posting naked photos of Lawrence and other stars. Apple said at the time it was looking into that. Tuesday afternoon's statement was the first confirmation from Apple that accounts had been hacked.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report)