‘Fappening’ hacker who stole hundreds of celebrity nudes jailed for 18 months
Georgia Diebelius for Metro.co.uk
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A man has been jailed for 18 months after hacking online accounts belonging to Hollywood stars and stealing their nudes.
Ryan Collins, 36, illegally accessed over 100 Google and Apple accounts, including that of Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence, between November 2012 and September 2014.
Collins, of Pennsylvania, was one of two suspects in the 2014 leaks known online as the Fappening and CelebGate.
Other celebrities pictures included that of Kate Upton, Rihanna and Avril Lavigne.
Prosecutors revealed that Collins used a ‘phishing’ scam to get his victims to enter their personal information.
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He was then, in some cases, able to access all the files his victims had saved online.
Some of these included naked videos and pictures.
A range of content ended up online, although federal prosecutors said that they found no evidence to suggest that Collins distributed any of the explicit images.
He had, however, gained access to at least 50 Apple iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts, many of which belonged to well-known female faces.
Pennsylvania US attorney Bruce Brandler said in a statement: ‘In some instances, Collins would use a software program to download the entire contents of the victims’ Apple iCloud backups.
‘In addition, Collins ran a modeling scam in which he tricked his victims into sending him nude photographs.
‘He was taken into custody immediately after sentencing.’
Collins was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
