An alleged hacker who reportedly threatened to sell the personal details of 319 million iCloud users is having his day in court. 21-year-old IT analyst Kerem Albayrak supposedly filmed himself accessing people’s accounts and posted footage showing this online.
He then asked Apple to pay him $174,000 worth of Bitcoin and $1,100 in iTunes vouchers to avoid doing anything with the accounts.
Albayrak appeared yesterday at Westminster magistrates’ court in London, U.K. He is being charged with blackmail and two counts of unauthorized acts with intent to impair the operation of a computer. He is yet to enter his pleas. He was granted unconditional bail until a preliminary hearing, which will take place on November 14.
The prosecutor said that, “Mr Karem Albayrak is accused of sending emails to Apple making financial demands for downloading database iCloud accounts and factory resetting those iCloud accounts. He entered into the accounts of the alleged victims and posted a video of his hack onto YouTube.”
It’s not clear from the story where Karem Albayrak acquired the stolen iCloud details.
More hacks where this one came from
This isn’t the only case of an Apple hacker that’s made it to court as of late. Back in August, the fourth hacker responsible for leaking nude images from hundreds of iCloud accounts, belonging to Hollywood celebrities and others, was sentenced to eight months in prison.
Last month, an Australian teenager who hacked into Apple’s servers and downloaded sensitive data was meanwhile given probation in place of a jail sentence.
Source: Daily Mail