Celebgate | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Mon, 01 Apr 2019 14:16:46 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Celebgate | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Scammer pleads guilty to accessing Apple accounts of famous artists and athletes https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/featured-tech-news/matthew-wilson/scammer-pleads-guilty-to-accessing-apple-accounts-of-famous-artists-and-athletes/ https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/featured-tech-news/matthew-wilson/scammer-pleads-guilty-to-accessing-apple-accounts-of-famous-artists-and-athletes/#respond Mon, 01 Apr 2019 14:16:46 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=408840 Many of you will remember the massive 2014 leak that saw private photos of various celebrities plastered all over the internet. Through a huge phishing scam, a group of people were able to gain access to the iCloud accounts of a bunch of celebrities and steal their private information. Most of those involved in that …

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Many of you will remember the massive 2014 leak that saw private photos of various celebrities plastered all over the internet. Through a huge phishing scam, a group of people were able to gain access to the iCloud accounts of a bunch of celebrities and steal their private information. Most of those involved in that mess have since been caught and arrested. However, the situation could have easily arose again, as someone else has been arrested for conducting a similar phishing scam.

This week, a US citizen by the name of Kwamaine Ford pleaded guilty to one count of computer fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Ford posed as an Apple customer support representative and sent out thousands of emails to famous athletes and artists. In these emails, he would request usernames, passwords and answers to various security questions. In some cases, the account holders would pass this information over. Ford would then change the email address, passwords and security question details to completely take over the account.

The US Department of Justice says that there was evidence for hundreds of unauthorised account logins. Using these accounts, Ford was able to obtain credit card information, which he then used to buy furniture, plane tickets, hotels and even transfer money into his own bank accounts.

Chris Hacker, the Special Agent in charge of the investigation rightfully noted that “this case demonstrates the need to be careful in protecting personal information”, adding that this should be “a lesson for everyone, not just the victims in this case”.

KitGuru Says: Phishing scams have gotten more convincing over the years thanks to email spoofing and some email clients don't always make it easy to see the true address a message came from. If you are ever randomly contacted by someone claiming to be a customer service rep, or an official entity like PayPal, a utility provider or even the government, then be sure to double check everything. If you are ever asked to reveal account-specific information, then it is a scam and should be avoided.

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‘Fappening’ hacker given 18 month jail sentence https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/fappening-hacker-given-18-month-jail-sentence/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/fappening-hacker-given-18-month-jail-sentence/#comments Fri, 28 Oct 2016 10:34:18 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=309983 The 36 year old man from Lancaster, Pennsylvania convicted of hacking, phishing and sneaking his way into the accounts of many of the world's most prominent female celebrities in order to view their private photos, has been sentenced. For his part in “The Fappening,” he was given 18 months in U.S. federal prison. During the court proceedings, …

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The 36 year old man from Lancaster, Pennsylvania convicted of hacking, phishing and sneaking his way into the accounts of many of the world's most prominent female celebrities in order to view their private photos, has been sentenced. For his part in “The Fappening,” he was given 18 months in U.S. federal prison.

During the court proceedings, the man in question admitted to having spent two years phishing various celebrities to acquire their passwords. He used that information to access Apple iCloud and similar photo storage services, in order to acquire their images – especially provocative ones. Those images were later shared online, much to the embarrassment of many of those pictured within them.

At the time Apple was forced to respond by stating that though there have been a large leak of images from its servers, that no Apple systems had been compromised. While there was much speculation about what happened, it turns out that indeed Apple's security systems had remained secure, but that the victims had all been tricked into handing over personal information.

gavel

Source: Brian Turner/Flickr

While 18 months might seem like a relatively short sentence for the man in question, it could well be because he doesn't appear to be guilty of leaking the images. While he did acquire them, the Guardian reports that there was no evidence to suggest he was behind the eventual publishing.

There were rumours around the time of their reveal that an underground trading network existed for celebrity images. It was said at the time that once the damn broke, many people from that network began sharing the images, believing that they had lost their value as a black market commodity.

That's all entirely speculative, but unless we eventually find out who was responsible for leaking the images, we may never know for sure.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Who do you guys think might have been responsible for the eventual leak of these images? 

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