14 DAY TRIAL // Two young men were detained by German authorities in connection with malware infections on the computers of over fifty celebrities, including Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake.
The alleged hackers are a 17-year-old teen from Duisburg and a 23-year-old from Wesel, who allegedly conspired to spy on pop stars and obtain sensitive information about them.
The primary target seems to have been unreleased music, but the hackers also stole credit card information, personal email, documents and intimate photographs.
The Telegraph reports that their weapon of choice was a computer trojan, although the actual infection vector has not been named.
Targeted email attacks are a method commonly used to compromise particular individuals or companies and are certainly a possibility.
In such attacks recipients are directed to compromised websites rigged with exploits targeting vulnerabilities in outdated versions of popular applications, which silently install malware in the background.
The intrusions apparently came to light after Kelly Clarkson contacted the authorities about her yet-to-be-released songs being leaked onto the Internet.
The investigation led the FBI and the German Federal Police Service to the two German men after they bragged about their success on Internet hacking forums.
The illegally obtained material was being sold on the underground market and some musicians were forced to move their album release dates forward because of the leaks.
“Basically we are talking about illegal, bootlegged publication, and spying using Trojans,” commented state prosecutor Rolf Haferkamp, for the Neue Ruhr/Neuer Rhein Zeitung newspaper.
“The trick itself is nothing special. All it requires is a bit of know-how and perseverance to achieve criminal success,” he noted.
The hackers even tried to blackmail 24-year-old American pop singer Kesha with a compromising picture they lifted from her computer. However, their attempt was unsuccessful.
The men have not officially been charged yet, but according to some reports, they already confessed to the crimes.