Pages

Sunday, July 3, 2016

Hacker Through Chicago Pleads Guilty In order to 'Celebgate' Nude Photo Phishing Plan

A man from Chi town has pleaded guilty to utilizing a phishing scheme to hack to the computers of celebrities to steal private information and sensitive content.

Ed Majerczyk, 28 years aged, was charged with illegally accessing a lot more than 300 accounts on Apple's iCloud as well as Google's Gmail platforms, a minimum of 30 of which belonged in order to celebrities.

Majerczyk agreed to plead guilty to 1 count of felony for unauthorized use of a protected computer to acquire information, in a cope with federal authorities in La. The information that the actual hacker obtained was contained in an incident in 2014, which is now known as the "Celebgate" scandal.

Within the incident, private nude photos of several actresses as well as models were leaked on the internet, including Kate Upton, Jennifer Lawrence, Brie Larson as well as Olivia Munn.

However, none from the celebrities whom Majerczyk hacked inside the period of November 2013 in order to August 2014 were specified within the plea deal.

The guilty plea of Majerczyk uses 36-year-old Ryan Collins, another hacker associated with Celebgate, likewise pleaded guilty following being charged of gaining unauthorized use of protected computers between time frame of November 2012 in order to September 2014. Collins could hack into at minimum 100 iCloud and Googlemail accounts, with some of these belonging to celebrities.

Majerczyk and Collins both used exactly the same phishing technique of delivering their victims emails which were made to appear to possess come from internet support and security providers. The emails contained hyperlinks to websites that gathered the username and passwords of the victims to gain entry to their accounts.

Once the cyber-terrorist had the login particulars, they were able to get into sensitive information, including naked pictures and videos.

Nevertheless, according to the government bodies, while Majerczyk and Collins each pleaded guilty to being able to access the accounts, there isn't any direct evidence that points towards the hackers being the types who leaked the photos and videos online.

"Hacking of online accounts to steal private information is not merely an intrusion of the individual's privacy, but is really a serious violation of government law, " said USA. Attorney Eileen Decker.

FBI La field office assistant overseer Deirdre Fike added which what the hackers do cause embarrassment and enduring harm, and so users along with accounts and devices containing personal information should always safeguard their own data. This would be particularly more essential for celebrities, who could end up being directly targeted by this kind of attacks.

Both hackers are now facing imprisonment as high as five years.

Techsourcenetwork