Pa. Man Charged With Hacking Celeb Apple, Gmail Accounts

A Pennsylvania man was charged Tuesday with felony figurer hacking related to the so-called "celebgate" nude photograph leaks in September 2014.

Ryan Collins, 36, of Lancaster, Penn. volition plead guilty to a felony violation of the Calculator Fraud Abuse Human activity as well as ane count of unauthorized access to a protected computer, according to the Department of Justice. Collins for nigh two years orchestrated a phishing scheme that gave him illegal access to more 100 Apple tree and Google e-mail accounts, including those belonging to big-name celebrities similar Jennifer Lawrence. After entering his guilty plea, Collins volition face up a maximum judgement of five years in federal prison house.

While investigators did not detect testify linking Collins to the bodily leaks, they said he illegally accessed the email accounts of numerous female celebrities and obtained their personal information, including nude photos and videos.

He allegedly carried out the figurer crimes from Nov 2022 until the beginning of September 2022, sending emails that appeared to come from Apple tree or Google request victims for their usernames and passwords. When the victims responded, they unknowingly handed their credentials not to Google or Apple, simply to Collins, who then had admission to their e-mail accounts.

"Mr. Collins violated their privacy and left many to contend with lasting emotional distress, embarrassment and feelings of insecurity," David Bowdich, the assistant managing director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office said in a statement. "We go along to see both celebrities and victims from all walks of life suffer the consequences of this law-breaking and strongly encourage users of Cyberspace-connected devices to strengthen passwords and to be skeptical when replying to emails asking for personal information."

All told, Collins accessed "at to the lowest degree" l iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts, "nigh of which belonged to female person celebrities," the DoJ said. Afterwards gaining admission to these accounts, "in some instances, Collins would use a software program to download the entire contents of the victims' Apple iCloud backups."

About Angela Moscaritolo

Angela Moscaritolo is PCMag'south expert on fitness and smart home products. Teaching yoga for almost 10 years has helped her in evaluating a range of connected wellness products including fettle trackers, centre rate monitors, rowers, smart scales, stationary bikes, force training machines, treadmills, and more. Angela also tests smart home devices from her ranch in Florida, including air purifiers, kitchen appliances, and robot vacuums, just to name a few.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/software/11133/pa-man-charged-with-hacking-celeb-apple-gmail-accounts

Posted by: jacksonsentin2001.blogspot.com

Share this post