Former Yahoo engineer hacked thousands of accounts for nudes
In a shocking case, a software engineer who used to work at Yahoo has pleaded guilty to accessing and searching thousands of accounts on the service. Reyes Daniel Ruiz said he exploited his position at the tech company to break into the accounts of younger women and look up for their nudes. Here's more about this incident.
Ruiz abused his privileges to access 6,000 accounts
According to a statement issued by the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, Ruiz, who worked as a programmer at Yahoo, abused his privileges to gain unauthorized access to as many as 6,000 user accounts. He cracked the passwords for the accounts and tried searching nude pictures and videos of younger women, including some of his friends and co-workers.
No clarity on his level of access, hack method
While Ruiz's action breached the accounts without permission, there's no clarity on how he did it. There are two possible theories: either he exploited his employee status at the company to gain direct access to the accounts (which is scary as other employees would also have had the same level of access) or he used his technical know-how to hack the accounts.
Ruiz also compromised services like iCloud and Google Drive
Along with hunting nudes, Ruiz also exploited his access to mine information from email messages and hack more accounts associated with the service. This included popular social media and cloud services starting from Facebook and Gmail to iCloud and Dropbox. Notably, when Yahoo noted his activities, he went on to destroy a computer and the hard disk that held the stolen photos/videos.
Now, he faces penalty and prison charges
Ruiz, according to the attorney's statement, has been charged with one count of computer intrusion and one of intercepting wire communication. He has pleaded guilty to the crimes and now faces a prison sentence of a maximum of five years and a restitution fine up to $250,000. The final sentence in the matter is expected to given next year in February.
