14 DAY TRIAL // A 23-year-old California man admitted causing severe emotional distress to tens of women by hacking into their personal email accounts and using risque photos found inside to blackmail them.
George Samuel Bronk, 23, of Citrus Heights, CA, pleaded guilty to seven felony charges of computer intrusion, false impersonation and child pornography, California Attorney General's Office announces.
He was arrested at the end of October last year following an investigation that saw the participation of the California Highway Patrol, the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force, and the FBI.
Authorities claim the hacker compiled personal dossiers on over 3,200 women using information about them that was publicly accessible on Facebook.
This allowed him perform password resets on the email account of many of them by correctly answering the secret security questions.
When inspecting his computer, investigators found nude and semi-nude photographs stolen from the emails of over 170 women.
In many cases the hacker sent the pictures to all contacts in the victim's address book, while in others, he also compromised their Facebook accounts and shared them with their friends.
Bronk contacted some of the women and threatened them to spread their photos widely on the Internet if they did not send send him more intimate pictures.
Authorities found it hard to identify victims. They had to use photo metadata to get a general location and send questionnaires to all women that matched the name in those regions.
In total, 48 women came forth and admitted that they had been victimized. One of them described the experience as "virtual rape."
Bronk faces a sentence of six years in state prison and will have to register as a sex offender. His next hearing is scheduled for March 10.
The case outlines how important it is for users to protect their personal information on social networking sites by restricting the groups of people who can view it.
Users are also encouraged to create non-default security questions for their accounts with answers that cannot be easily determined from information shared online.
It is also a very good idea to delete sensitive messages, like those containing intimate photos, from the Sent folder on email accounts.