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A Man from Connecticut Found Guilty for 2014 Celebrity Icloud Hack

 

As per District of Connecticut's U.S. Attorney Office, a person named George Garofano, aged 26, was sentenced to prison for eight months, which will be followed by supervision release for the next three years. He was sent to prison for a phishing attack which was instigated by him. Near about 200 iCloud accounts were attacked by the hackers. Several non-celebrities residing in Connecticut, along with members of entertainment industry were victims of this hack.

 

Garofano admitted in court that he participated in phishing scheme between April 2013 and October 2014. The attack solicited usernames and passwords through an email that pretended as if it has come from Apple's official security account. The targeted users were asked to provide the sensitive data or their personal information, either directly or through a third-party website.

 

George Garofano was amongst one of the four people who were charged under the hacking scandal of 2014. The hackers published personal photographs of Kirsten Dunst, Kate Upton, Lawrence, and several others online, as posted on August 29, 2018, in theguardian.com.

 

In January, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California has filed charges against George Garofano, and subsequently the case was transferred to District of Connecticut.

 

Prosecutors of the case wanted Garafano to serve 10 to 16 months of prison. However, Garafano pleaded for a lenient sentence that can be five months of prison, along with five months of home confinement. Garafano further continued that he has paid up a lot for his misdeed and already had repented for his hacking act of 2014. As per him, he was in college during that time.

 

Garofano is the most recent "Celebgate" offender to go to prison. A man from Illinois, last year, was sent to prison for 9 months in a similar phishing attack that targeted over 300 Gmail and iCloud accounts. Before that, in 2016, a man from Pennsylvania was sent to prison for 18 months as he has accessed 72 Gmail accounts and 50 iCloud accounts.

 

iCloud security of Apple has improved now, as they have added the two-factor authentication in iCloud.com. The improved version will now send email alerts whenever an account of iCloud is accessed through web. Moreover, app-specific passwords will now be required for the third-party apps that are accessing the iCloud.

» SPAMfighter News - 9/5/2018

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