‘Celebgate’ hacker pleads guilty to stealing graphic sex snaps of naked female stars

AN American man has pleaded guilty to stealing naked pictures of more than 30 Hollywood stars.

Edward Majerczyk, 28, is now facing a maximum of five years in prison after tricking people into visiting booby-trapped websites that stole login data by crafting fake security warnings from service providers.

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Majerczyk, from Chicago, spent nine months between November 2013 and August 2014 conning 300 celebs and civilians into giving away passwords to their iCloud and Gmail accounts.

This allowed him to access "sensitive and private photographs and video".

Men then began sharing the pictures on internet message boards, although prosecutors said Majerczyk was not linked to the leaks.

“This defendant not only hacked into e-mail accounts – he hacked into his victims’ private lives, causing embarrassment and lasting harm,” said Deirdre Fike, an FBI assistant director based in the Los Angeles Field Office.

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“As most of us use devices containing private information, cases like this remind us to protect our data. Members of society whose information is in demand can be even more vulnerable, and directly targeted.”

The women exposed in the scandal include household names. Some of these images were extremely graphic, showing the ladies engaging in intimate acts.

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None of these women were named publicly during the latest case. It is understood that about 30 of the 300 targets were female celebs.

"Hacking of online accounts to steal personal information is not merely an intrusion of an individual’s privacy but is a serious violation of federal law,” said United States Attorney Eileen M. Decker.

“Defendant’s conduct was a profound intrusion into the privacy of his victims and created vulnerabilities at multiple online service providers.”

Celebs' naked pictures are still circulating in the darker corners of the internet, despite attempts to remove them.

They were obtained using a process called "phishing", which involves sending fake emails designed to fool targets into handing over their passwords.

Majerczyk has "signed a plea agreement in which he agrees to plead guilty to a felony violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, specifically, one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information", the Department of Justice announced.