Hacker of nude photos indicted

A hacker of intimate photos and information of hundreds of famous female TV personalities and models was indicted in the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday by the prosecution’s new cyber unit.

From 2009 until early July, the alleged hacker, Ido Arubas, 42, hacked into the telephones of more than 350 people, as well as their Gmail, Walla and Yahoo email accounts and cloud storage to collect photos and videos of them naked, exposed, engaging in sexual relations, and otherwise violating their privacy.

There is a gag order on the hacked material and on the identities of those whose accounts were hacked, including the famous models, TV actors and TV news personalities.

According to the indictment, Arubas succeeded in hacking into their telephones and email accounts by following them online, on social media, obtaining public information from government sources, and running a range of guesses of their passwords until he could log in.

His guesses included combinations of their names, birthdays, telephone numbers, favorite animals and other information.

Once Arubas had hacked their accounts, he transferred their intimate files onto his system, where he sorted the files between famous people and people who were not famous.

The prosecution requested that Arubas be kept in police custody until the end of his trial, to extend the gag order indefinitely, and to hold the trial behind closed doors to safeguard the privacy of his victims.

The prosecution’s still relatively new cyber unit has been increasingly active and producing a greater number of indictments of late, with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked heralding its successes as a sign that the state is catching up with cyber crime.