Women watch out for 'sensitive' photo theft from e-mail accounts

Hackers can use the same techniques that another hacker used to attack the Yahoo Mail account of former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

A Californian (US) pleaded guilty to breaking into e-mail accounts of thousands of women, scouring it for nude photos and posting on the Internet.

Illustration.(Internet source)

George Bronk, 23, was arrested at the end of October 2010 after police found evidence that he broke into more than 3,200 e-mail accounts.

Bronk used the same technique that the hacker David Kernell used to break into Sarah Palin's Yahoo Mail account: He searched for the victim's Facebook account to get information from that answer to the questions asked. security on webmail services like Gmail and Yahoo Mail.

After that, Bronk logged in with the victim's account name and informed the webmail service that he forgot his password, then tried to answer the security questions to be logged in. Often, the security questions (chosen by the victim when registering an email account) are easy to guess. The questions Bronk must answer are often " What is your high school mascot? " And " What is your father's middle name? ".

After logging in, he will change the account password to prevent the victim from accessing, and search for any ' indecent ' photos. If found, he will post to the victim's Facebook profile.

In the 3,200 accounts hacked, Bronk saw nude or semi-nude images in 172 accounts, prosecutors said.

The Bronk faces a six-year prison sentence for stealing, child pornography and identity theft. On Thursday January 13, 2011, he pleaded guilty in the Sacramento Superior Court.