apple: Hacker steals private data of Apple iCloud users: Report – Times of India

Authorities in the US have arrested a man for hacking into the accounts of Apple iCloud users and stealing their intimate photos and videos, as per a report by TechRadar. As per the court filings, Hao Kuo Chi, a resident of California, was found to have conspired with others to access the private accounts of more than three hundred Apple customers in the US, with the campaign extending at least as far back as September 2014.
As per a document from the US Department of Justice, Chi “specifically sought out nude photographs and videos of young women” once he broke into the accounts. He then traded these with other “conspirators”, some of whom later leaked the pictures and video into the public domain.
How did he break into the secure Apple iCloud?
Chi used a number of fake email accounts to masquerade as a member of the Apple customer support and reportedly obtained the login credentials (Apple ID and passwords) of the targeted Apple iCloud users from themselves only. The report adds that he also used 1TB cloud storage to store nude images and video clips. The collection could have hundreds of thousands of items, as per the report. The report says that Chi boasted of his hacking abilities using an online pseudonym “icloudripper4you”.
As per the report, Chi will testify against the others involved. The joint penalties for the crime could lead to spending a maximum of 20 years in prison; testifying against the others may or may not lessen the sentence duration.