Second Celebgate Hacker Faces Just Nine Months

A man from Chicago, who allegedly hacked 30 celebrity accounts through phishing in 2014 and posted their nude photos online, has been charged and is facing a nine month prison sentence. IT security experts from ESET, AlienVault and Imperva commented below.

Mark James, Security Specialist at ESET:

“Sadly this sends the wrong signal. Although of course I don’t have access to all the information regarding this case, it does seem somewhat shy of fair justice for the people it affects. Nine months (even if he serves the full term) seems a short sentence, the likes of  Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst, Kate Upton and all the other people this hack affected will have to live with the consequences for ever.

It often seems the justice system lets down the victims. If you break the law you should have to pay the price, if the penalty seems insignificant then how is that going to be a deterrent for others? It’s already hard enough to get convictions in the world of cybercrime, so when we do, penalties need to be of consequence.”

Javvad Malik, Security Advocate at AlienVault:

“If anything, with every legal case, we see the disparity between the law and its application to technology. The rate at which technology is evolving and the criminal uses it can be put to, continually outpace lawmakers.”

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Amichai Shulman, CTO and Co-Founder of Imperva:

“In this case we have a person indicted and sentenced in a relatively short period in time. This shows that when authorities decide to get involved they are capable of taking real actions and getting to perpetrators. The more we see such success stories the less cybercrime we will see to begin with.”