One of the men involved in The Frappening pleaded guilty. Ryan Collins took part of The Frappening media hype in 2014 and he revealed how he and the rest of his team were able to hack into iCloud.
Ryan Collins, a 36-year-old hacker from Lancaster Pennsylvania, owned up to the accusations filed against him in relation to The Frappening. Ryan Collins was charged with one count of gaining unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, according to TMZ.
The Frappening took place in 2014, wherein Collins was held responsible for hacking 50 iCloud and 72 Gmail accounts between November 2012 and September 2014. Though Collins was responsible to hacking the photos that were used for The Frappening, he was not, however, the one liable for posting them online.
According to IBT, Collins was able to gather the information needed to access the accounts though a "phishing" wherein he disguised himself as a Google or Apple employee. After the needed information was given, Collins was able to successfully access the accounts and transferred the files into his system.
According to the court documents, once Collins would plead guilty to taking part on The Frappening, he will serve jail time. It was mentioned that Collins can potentially serve up to 18 months in prison.
"Today, people store important private information in their online accounts and in their digital devices," Eileen M. Decker, United States Attorney said as per the United States Department of Justice . "Lawless unauthorized access to such private information is a criminal offense. My Office remains committed to protecting sensitive and personal information from the malicious actions of sophisticated hackers and cyber criminals."
Ryan Collins was only charged for the phishing scheme, but it was not cited as to whether Collins was the only one responsible for gathering the information. Ryan Collins was not charged for publicly leaking the gathered information up to this date. Some on the celebrities included in The Frappening are Kate Upton, Jennifer Lawrence and Kirsten Dunst.
