A 40-calendar year-previous male from California has admitted his job in a conspiracy to break into the personal electronic image libraries of Apple buyers to locate and steal sexually specific visuals.
Hao Kuo Chi, a resident of the metropolis of La Puenta in Los Angeles County, pleaded guilty to costs of laptop fraud and conspiracy on Friday, Oct 15.
According to documents submitted to a courtroom in Tampa, Florida, Chi conspired with other unidentified men and women to attain unauthorized obtain to the Apple iCloud accounts of hundreds of people today across the United States.
In a plan that went on for several years, Chi promoted his providers as a hacker online in underground discussion boards. Making use of the deal with “icloudripper4you,” Chi advertised that he was in a position to crack into iCloud accounts and exfiltrate their contents.
For the duration of the conspiracy, Chi acquired entry to much more than 300 iCloud accounts by impersonating Apple personnel. To mask his identity, the hacker produced faux email accounts that appeared to belong to Apple shopper help reps.
“Chi designed email accounts for the objective of impersonating Apple customer help reps, and Chi’s conspirators despatched Apple IDs and passwords of unsuspecting victims to these email accounts,” explained the US Attorney’s Office environment for the Middle District of Florida in a statement released October 15.
Soon after breaking into a victim’s iCloud account, Chi would research specially for photos in which a feminine subject was depicted as partly clothed or naked.
“Chi and his conspirators particularly sought out nude images and films of youthful girls, which the conspirators referred to as ‘wins’,” stated the US Attorney’s Office for the Center District of Florida.
Chi shared and traded these illustrations or photos with his conspirators, using a international-based mostly, conclude-to-finish encrypted email support. The hacker also admitted that he kept hundreds of countless numbers of stolen visuals for his personal collection and managed a terabyte of cloud storage for this reason.
A date has not still been set for Chi’s sentencing. If convicted on equally fees, the self-confessed cyber-criminal could be ordered to devote a maximum of 20 years locked up in federal jail with no chance of parole.
Some parts of this article are sourced from:
www.infosecurity-journal.com