DOJ: Pottsville man faces prison time for hacking into women’s accounts, selling their photos | Poconos and Coal Region | #hacking | #cybersecurity | #infosec | #comptia | #pentest | #hacker | #hacking | #aihp

SCRANTON – A Schuylkill County man will serve time in prison for hacking into women’s accounts and selling their photos to other people, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.

Brandon B. Boyer, 34, of Pottsville, was sentenced on Jan. 18 to 18 months in prison, to be followed by a two-year term of supervised release, for the computer hacking offense of obtaining information from protected computers, the DOJ said.

According to United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, for a two-year period from approximately February 2020 to February 2022, Boyer unlawfully accessed the computers of dozens of women in order to search for and obtain nude photographs that he could then sell.

Boyer accessed victims’ Snapchat accounts at the behest of “clients” who paid him to break into the accounts and obtain the images, according to the DOJ.

The DOJ says Boyer admitted that he accomplished this, in part, through use of an app that allowed him to send text messages to victims posing as a Snapchat representative. Through a technique known as “phishing,” Boyer then coaxed the victims into changing their passwords and sending him the verification codes that were generated, according to the news release.

This allowed him to then access the otherwise private sections of the accounts, the DOJ said.

According to the DOJ, Boyer acknowledged earning between $50,000 and $60,000 from this activity. Some of Boyer’s “clients” used the photographs that they obtained via Boyer to cyberstalk and to attempt to extort victims into providing additional photographs, the DOJ said.