Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt speak onstage during the CinemaCon 2016 'An Evening with Sony Pictures Entertainment: Celebrating the Summer of 2016 and Beyond' held in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo : Getty Images/Alberto E. Rodriguez)
The man who participated in hacking the iCloud accounts of several celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton, has been sentenced to 18 months of prison.
The notorious "Fappening" hacker, identified as 36-year-old Ryan Collins of Lancaster, was sentenced by a federal judge in Pennsylvania, USA Today reported. He was charged for prying into the email and online accounts of several female celebrities, Lawrence included, and stealing private information, such as the nude photos that circulated the internet following the hack.
Prosecutors established that Collins gained access to over 100 Google and Apple accounts during the period of November 2012 to September 2014. Many of the accounts they were able to breach belonged to celebrities and other public personalities.
It was said that there was no evidence that could pin Collin as the person who uploaded the images on the internet and that he had no hand in the spread of such private photos. His involvement, however, was evident in his plea of guilty.
Collins pleaded guilty in May to one count of gaining unauthorized access to a protected computer to extract information. It is said that Collins took part in a "sophisticated phishing scheme" from November 2014 to early September of the same year in order to obtain usernames and passwords in to get their identities. He sent emails that appeared like official correspondence from Apple or Google in order to trick people into sending him their usernames and passwords. Moreover, he was discovered to have used a software program that downloads all information stored on a person's Apple iCould backups.
The FBI was able to locate FBI through his connection with "Celebgate," which also refers to the massive hacking incident involving over 100 celebrities.
The victims of the massive "Fappening" incident include celebrities such as Kirsten Dunst, Vanessa Hudgens, Kate Bosworth, Hayden Panettiere, Kim Kardashian and Rihanna. Private photos of actresses, models, singers and other celebrities were spread via Reddit and 4chan. Prosecutors have yet to identify the person who was actually responsible for spreading the photos online.
According to Esquire, Edward Majerczyk, is Collins' second in command during the hack. He pleaded guilty to the crime in April, but is currently awaiting sentence.
