Security News > 2022 > June > iCloud hacker gets 9 years in prison for stealing nude photos
A California man who hacked thousands of Apple iCloud accounts was sentenced to 8 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy and computer fraud in October 2021.
Starting from as early as September 2014, 41-year-old Hao Kuo Chi from La Puente, California, started marketing himself as "Icloudripper4you," someone capable of breaching iCloud accounts and stealing anything contained in the linked iCloud storage.
After compromising an iCloud account, he would look for and steal nude photographs and videos from victims' online storage, sharing them with conspirators who later published them online.
Chi also shared some of the compromising photos and videos on a now-defunct revenge porn website without his victims' consent and intending "To intimidate, harass, or embarrass."
Until caught, Chi gained unauthorized access to hundreds of targets' iCloud accounts from all over the United States, including Arizona, California, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas.
"Chi's email accounts contained the iCloud credentials of approximately 4,700 victims. These accounts also revealed that he had sent content stolen from victims to conspirators on more than 300 occasions," the Department of Justice revealed today.