Facebook phisher nicked naked personal photos

by Steven Mostyn - Jan 17 2011, 07:17

While ‘Best Picture’ winner The Social Network is likely revelling in the glow of the Golden Globes this morning, the online service that fuelled its award-winning narrative is being bathed in a much less desirable spotlight.

More pointedly, George Samuel Bronk from California has hit the headlines after he pled guilty to using Facebook to phish out and steal explicit photographs from the email accounts of female profile holders.

According to a press release from the office of California attorney general Kamala Harris, the 23-year-old targeted women who openly posted their email addresses to their Facebook profile along with personal details such as favourite colours and foods, the names of high-school mascots, and the middle names of their fathers. 

Duly armed with the kind of sensitive information often sought out by phishing scams, Bronk then used it to successfully navigate the “identity challenges” that are routinely presented to email users who’ve forgotten their account passwords and are unable to log-in.

Once within a victim’s account, Bronk would change the password to prevent user access before rifling through “Sent Mail” files in search of nude photographic imagery or explicit personal videos.

Bronk then either dispatched compromising images to everyone on a victim’s contact lists, or he’d use them to blackmail victims into providing him with even more revealing content.

When Bronk was arrested back in October of 2010, police uncovered more than 170 personal photographs taken from hijacked email accounts. He now faces charges of computer intrusion, impersonation, and even possession of child pornography.

We here at The Tech Herald have said the following countless times, and will continue to do so:

Do not post ANY sensitive personal information (i.e., postal address, birthday, marital status, phone number, email address) to the public profile pages of networks such as Facebook, MySpace or Twitter.

All of this information can be easily accessed and used to steal your identity, which, tasteless theft of compromising imagery notwithstanding, can often lead to the emptying of your bank account and/or completely ruined credit.  

Bronk is presently being held on $500,000 USD bail and is expected to receive his sentencing in March.

Around the Web