Hacker Gets Six Months in Prison for Accessing Hundreds of Celebrity Emails and Spreading Explicit Images

Law enforcement is hopefully making strides to make examples out of hackers who are caught doing wrong just as Andrew Helton was for hacking into the email accounts of 363 people to steal explicit images and videos.

Helton, a 29-year-old man from Portland, Oregon, was sentenced to six months in jail and a fine of $3,000 for his hacking actions that ultimately ended in the theft of about 161 sexually explicit images and videos from 13 out of the 363 email accounts he hacked.

Helton was able to compromise hundreds of email accounts through clever phishing techniques. Basically, he would send out phishing emails that pretended to be from Apple and Google to several of his people; most were strangers that he had no contact with, while others were among the A-list of Hollywood celebrities.

To clear the air, Helton is not the culprit in a recent Fappening (Celebgate) case that took place back in 2014 from a massive leak of celebrity photos from iCloud accounts. However, Helton's actions are not much different in his quest to seek out material that didn't belong to him and was a direct violation of people's privacy.

Similar to previous cases of hackers attacking iCloud accounts to steal and share explicit images and videos of celebrities or high profile people, in Helton's hacking activities he used phishing schemes to collect email login credentials.

The methodology of using phishing emails is a popularized action for stealing logins. Such a process involves crafting a canny email message that resembles one that asks users for their login due to a certain issue or verification. While most computer users would not fall for such a trick, there is a good number that will and they end up relinquishing their login details giving the hacker unadulterated access to their email account.

Armed with access to one's email account you can find out a lot about a person and eventually dig through other online accounts to access personal effects, which in the case of Helton's hack the stolen material was a small collection of sexually explicit images and videos.

After Helton's arrest, he was later tried in a court of law for his actions where his defense attempted to claim he suffered from mental issues that led to his illegal acts. In the case, Helton pleaded guilty in February 2016 and was later sentenced to six months and a $3,000 fine.

While Helton's arrest and ultimate punishment appear to be a slap on the hand to some, it should be known that he was caught and eventually prosecuted that lead to inevitable consequences. However, we're sure that law enforcement is steadily keeping an eye on his future activities as some claim that once you are a hacker, you'll always be a hacker. Maybe he should work for the FBI or local police for fighting cybercrime.