Second man pleads gulity in 'Celebgate' hacks of iCloud & Gmail accounts

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in iCloud
Edward Majerczyk of Illinois has become the second person to plead guilty in 2014's "Celebgate" scandal, which saw the leak of nude photos and other private data from hundreds of people, including many female celebrities.









Appearing in front of the U.S. District Court in Chicago on Tuesday, Majerczyk plead guilty to a felony charge of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information, Reuters reported. The Chicago Tribune quoted Majerczyk's lawyer as claiming there was no evidence "of any effort by my client to sell or disseminate" images, and that the hacking was purely for Majerczyk's own satisfaction.



Federal prosecutors are seeking a nine-month prison sentence.



A Pennsylvania man plead guilty to a related felony hacking charge in March, but the Tribune quoted the Los Angeles U.S. attorney's office as saying an investigation into who actually published the data is still ongoing. The Celebgate content was quickly distributed in a number of locations online.



Majerczyk is accused of using a phishing scheme to break into the iCloud and Gmail accounts of over 300 people between Nov. 2013 and Aug. 2014. The incident raised questions about the security of both platforms, though ultimately phishing relies on deceiving people into sharing sensitive information like passwords.



Some of the people who were victims of Celebgate included actresses Kirsten Dunst and Jennifer Lawrence, and U.S. soccer star Hope Solo.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    fallenjtfallenjt Posts: 4,053member
    "Hacks of iCloud"? When? 
    tallest skil
  • Reply 2 of 10
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Hack's?  Or were they Phishing emails that duped naive users?  Surely AI writes know the difference?  If the second explanation, could some senior editor on AI please stop the misuse of the words 'hacks' or 'hacked' in headlines or articles.  It is not only plain silly it is seriously damaging to share holders of AAPL when the public read such things.
    edited September 2016 tallest skilchiagilly017
  • Reply 3 of 10
    Hack's?  Or were they Phishing emails that duped naive users?  Surely AI writes know the difference?  If the second explanation, could some senior editor on AI please stop the misuse of the words 'hacks' or 'hacked' in headlines or articles.  It is not only plain silly it is seriously damaging to share holders of AAPL when the public read such things.
    Yeah actually makes people think that someone can really hack Apple servers, honestly
  • Reply 4 of 10
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,015member
    I forgot there were some cool pictures of Hope Solo out there, too. Thanks for reminding me.  Kept my day interesting.  
  • Reply 5 of 10
    fallenjt said:
    "Hacks of iCloud"? When? 
    2014. Broke into individual user accounts whose passwords were common (e.g., "password").
  • Reply 6 of 10
    HarryxMe said:
    …catch my cheating wife


    What, like these hacks?
  • Reply 7 of 10
    Glad they caught these bastards. Lowlifes.
  • Reply 8 of 10
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    masnick said:
    fallenjt said:
    "Hacks of iCloud"? When? 
    2014. Broke into individual user accounts whose passwords were common (e.g., "password").
    That's what you call a hack?   I've lost count of the times I've had to help folks with router issues and their router's admin access was; user name 'Admin' and password 'password'.  I guess I am a hacker then!   IMHO anyone taking advantage of another human's stupidity or ignorance such as using phishing scams or easy passwords etc. isn't hacking as such.  If it is we need a new name for the scary stuff.  To me constantly using 'Hacked' in headlines as click bait about far lesser methods of access is tantamount to crying wolf.
  • Reply 9 of 10
    masnick said:
    fallenjt said:
    "Hacks of iCloud"? When? 
    2014. Broke into individual user accounts whose passwords were common (e.g., "password").
    That's not hack, dude. If your wife finds your Yahoo! ID and password, and logs into you Yahoo mail, do you call that Yahoo Email hack? Lol...get out of here!
    tallest skil
  • Reply 10 of 10
    macguimacgui Posts: 2,350member
    fallenjt said:
    masnick said:
    fallenjt said:
    "Hacks of iCloud"? When? 
    2014. Broke into individual user accounts whose passwords were common (e.g., "password").
    That's not hack, dude. If your wife finds your Yahoo! ID and password, and logs into you Yahoo mail, do you call that Yahoo Email hack? Lol...get out of here!
    Dude, of course it's a hack. It's the very definition of a hack, even if it's the simplest level, below that of a pedestrian brute force attack. If your wife finds your Yahoo! ID and password and logs into your Yahoo account, that's not a hack. That you leaving the keys to the Porsche on the kitchen table. But if she guesses that your boyfriend's birthday is your Yahoo! ID and your therapist's age and phone number is your password... Well, you were hacked. LOL... Turn in your Black Hat, you didn't earn it!
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