14 DAY TRIAL // The hacker claiming to have breached the iCloud accounts of more than 100 female celebrities left behind clues about his identity when posting proof of the stolen content.
Following the leak of images of various celebrities in various states of undress on 4Chan’s /b/ board over the weekend, the members of the community started digging for clues in order to find the identity of the hacker responsible for the deed.
It appears that these came from the poster taking responsibility for the hack, when he posted a screen grab with proof of illegally-obtained content being stored on his computer.
As it turns out, the screenshot revealed more than the files stolen from the celebs, as it also included network locations and the name of the HomeGroup sharing.
4channers were quick to spot the details and posted them on the board, together with a screenshot of the alleged hacker, which point to a 15-year-old who works as an intern for a web development company.
The network locations point to computers of co-workers, while the folder designed to capture the attention of the viewers shows multiple image and video files allegedly of US gymnast Mckayla Maroney. She took to Twitter to deny the authenticity of the leaked pictures.
At the moment, it is not clear how the perp managed to get his hands on the raunchy content, but social engineering seems to be the method used. He could have broken into the accounts by retrieving the iCloud passwords, which may have been used for protecting other web services, too.
The teen released to the public photos of numerous celebrities, most of them being instances of a half-naked Jennifer Lawrence. Other famous names that have already been affected by the leak include Kate Upton, Victoria Justice, Kirsten Dunst, Hope Solo, Krysten Ritter, Yvonne Strahovski, Teresa Palmer, Ariana Grande, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
Some of them have stated that the content published is fake, while others (Lawrence and Winstead) have admitted that the pics are real.
Given that the name of the alleged hacker has been discovered, it should not take long for a complete disclosure of his identity to appear online.
Similar hacking activities have been severely punished, one example being a man from Florida, Christopher Chaney, who hacked the email accounts of about 50 celebrities (Scarlett Johansson among them) and was sentenced to ten years of prison time.
the fake photos of me are crazy!! was trying to rise above it all, and not give "the creator" the time of day.. BUT.. pic.twitter.com/hceQcOxYkJ
— McKayla Maroney (@McKaylaMaroney) September 1, 2014