A 36-year-old Ryan Collins from Pennsylvania was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to hacking the Apple and Google accounts of more than 100 celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence, Aubrey Plaza, Rihanna, and Avril Lavigne. Collins stole personal information, including nude photos, from the celebrities.
The photos were famously posted on 4Chan and Reddit in 2014. Collins pleaded guilty to hacking the celebrities’ accounts in May, but he did not plead guilty to posting the images on the Internet. “Investigators have not uncovered any evidence linking Collins to the actual leaks or that Collins shared or uploaded the information he obtained,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) noted. Collins admitted sending emails to hundreds of targets posing as an employee of either Apple or Google, according to court documents. Recipients were instructed to gave the bogus representative their usernames and passwords, which Collins then used to access their accounts and pilfer private information, including personal emails, nude photographs and videos
According to The Guardian, Collins ran a phishing scheme from November 2012 to September 2014, sending celebrities e-mails that appeared to be from Apple and Google, requesting their user names and passwords. Collins tricked celebrities into handing him their usernames and passwords by sending his targets fake emails that appeared to be from Apple and Google, Pennsylvania US attorney Bruce Brandler said in a statement Thursday. Collins then stole personal information, including nude photos, from his targets, most of whom work in the entertainment industry.
In a press statement, the DOJ wrote that Collins would illegally access respondents’ accounts and search for nude photos and videos. “In some instances, Collins would use a software program to download the entire contents of the victims’ Apple iCloud backups,” the DOJ wrote. “In addition, Collins ran a modeling scam in which he tricked his victims into sending him nude photographs.” While investigating the unauthorized publication of those personal photos, authorities determined that Collins had hacked his way into accounts of multiple victims. According to investigators, however, no evidence exists to suggest Collins leaked their images to the web.
Collins apparently accessed at least 50 iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts and stole information from more than 600 victims, not all of whom were celebrities.
From the beginning, Apple maintained that the hacks weren’t the result of an iCloud vulnerability, but the fruit of a “very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions.” In the aftermath of the hack, some celebrities threatened Google with a $100 million lawsuit for failing to “act expeditiously and responsibly to remove the Images.” On Thursday the US attorney noted, however, that FBI investigators did not uncover evidence linking him to the actual release of private information or photos “or that Collins shared or uploaded the information he obtained”.
He was originally charged in Los Angeles but the case was transferred closer to his home in Pennsylvania, where a judge sentenced him on Wednesday. He had faced up to five years in jail and a $250,000 fine.
FBI investigators have traced similar hacking attacks on celebrities to two other men, one in Chicago and one in Oregon. Each plead guilty earlier this year, and investigators have said the three cases are unrelated.
