After nude photos began to circulate on the Web, actress Scarlett Johansson requested assistance from the FBI to find the person responsible for the leak.
A man was arrested in Florida yesterday (October 12), reports People. Christopher Chaney, 35, faces 26 charges of computer hacking, identity theft and wiretapping. The man faces up to 121 years in a federal prison.
Authorities dubbed the investigation ‘Operation Hackerazzi’ and say Chaney had hacked into dozens of personal e-mail accounts of people working in the entertainment industry, including Christina Aguilera and Mila Kunis.
“This [arrest] comes as a relief to the victims, many of whom suffered great distress,” said Steven Martinez from the FBI’s L.A. field office at a news conference.
The hacker allegedly obtained passwords and set his victims’ e-mail accounts to automatically forward to him, even if users reset their passwords, according to the charges laid by police. This then gave him access to financial information, movie scripts, photographs and private e-mails, as well as contact lists to search for new victims.