Hao Kuo Chi, a 41-year-old California resident, was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy and computer fraud in an October 2021 case. Under the nickname icloudripper4you, he hacked into iCloud accounts, from where he downloaded naked photos of girls, which were later used to blackmail the victims. The decision of the US Attorney’s Office was issued on Friday.
“This verdict reflects the determination of the US Attorney’s Office to bring cybercriminals to justice for their crimes,” said US Attorney Roger Handberg.
According to court documents, Chi worked for several years at Anon-IB, an “anonymous image” exchange site designed to allow users to post sexual or explicit photos.
The man allegedly used a foreign end-to-end encrypted email service to exchange images with his accomplices, some of whom made the photos publicly available.
Anon-IB is already blocked, but during his time on Chi’s site, he reportedly collected about 3.5 TB of victim data from both cloud and physical storage, containing content related to more than 500 victims.
A similar incident occurred in October 2021, when IT professional Justin Sean Johnson admitted to using his technical skills to hack online accounts, including iCloud, of tens of thousands of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) employees.
US Man Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison for Hacking iCloud Accounts and Stealing Nudes
Hao Kuo Chi illegally obtained iCloud credentials of 4700 victims
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