Celebrity Nudes iCloud Hacker Pleads Guilty, Facing 5 Years In Prison - Want to Know Names Of The Celebrities?
ByiCloud hacker Edward Majerczyk has pleaded guilty for his role in the "Celebgate" breach of 2014. And for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Majerczyk faces up to five years behind bars.
Majerczyk was one of the hackers who breach the security of iCloud accounts, in which many celebrities were targeted. A group of hackers possessed more than 30 celebrities' iCloud accounts with unrestricted access to the iCloud account of the victim. And the celebrities' private images and videos made their way onto the internet, based on the report of GSM Arena.
The 28 year old Majerczyk, like his fellow hacker Ryan Collins, used a phishing scam to deceive celebrities into logging in their online credentials into fake security sites. Then, Majerczyk used the information to illegally enter more than 300 personal iCloud and Gmail accounts, according to The Verge.
As the hackers got a hold of private photos and videos from targets including celebrities, however, there were no names mentioned in the court documents.
Deirdre Fike, FBI assistant director, said in a press statement that the defendant did not only illegally entered into email accounts, the defendant hacked into the private lives of the victims.
After Collins confessed earlier this year, Majerczyk is the second person, among the said team of hackers, to plead guilty to hacking into celebrities' accounts. While Majerczyk and Collins are charged with gaining unauthorized access, the court did not find any evidence linking the defendants to the distribution of explicit content, IMore reported.
Many of the victims were from the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. By illegally accessing the email accounts, Majerczyk grasped at least 300 email accounts, and at least 30 accounts belong to the members of the entertainment industry.
Majerczyk's plea agreement was put forward in California District Court and the case will be executed when it is transferred to the Northern District of Illinois, according to Apple Insider.