Federal officials nabbed a 36-year-old man from Pennsylvania, one of the cyberfriends involved in the "Celebgate" hack, which resulted in the leakage of intimate photos of numerous celebrities.
Ryan Collins from Lancaster, has plead guilty to a felony violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and unauthorized access to a protected computer. The hacking of Apple and Google accounts of at least 100 people, including celebrities, involved using an email that claimed to be from the two tech companies.
The email allegedly asked for the log-in details of the users. The victims unknowingly shared their usernames and passwords that opened the access to their private files from November 2012 to September 2014.
Collins used false email addresses such as noreply_helpdesk0118@outlook.com, secure.helpdesk0119@gmail.com and email.protection318@icloud.com. These email addresses looked like legit security accounts from internet providers.
Collins is facing 18 months in jail, but the judge could extend it to five years. He admitted to accessing at least 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts, most of them belonging to female celebrities. After gaining access to these accounts, the accused scanned through the victims' online data including private photos of celebrities.
In some cases, he used a software program that enabled him to download the entire contents of the victims' accounts and backups.
According to authorities, there is still an ongoing investigation of the case and there might still be more arrests in the future. There has not been any evidence that Collins himself posted the photos or he was directly part of the leakage. The case will be transferred to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. This is the first arrest linked to a security breach.
"By illegally accessing intimate details of his victims' personal lives, Mr. Collins violated their privacy and left many to contend with lasting emotional distress, embarrassment and feelings of insecurity," the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office, David Bowdich, said.
The victims of hacking suffered the consequences of the crime. The authorities are encouraging users to be cautious when responding to suspicious-looking emails asking for login details or personal information and to strengthen passwords to prevent this from happening again.
Some of the celebrities involved were Brie Larson, Olivia Munn, Kate Upton and Jennifer Lawrence.
Photo: Omar Jordan Fawahl | Flickr
