The hacker responsible for stealing nude photos of female celebrities two years ago has received 18 months in prison. Back in spring this year, Ryan Collins, 36, pleaded guilty to federal hacking charges. The hacker admitted to a 2-year phishing scam aimed at gaining passwords of more than 100 people, including such celebrities as Jennifer Lawrence and Avril Lavigne.

The hacker tricked celebrities into handing him their usernames and passwords. This was done by sending the celebrities fake emails that appeared to be from Apple and Google. After obtaining the required information, Ryan Collins stole the women’s personal data, such as nude photos. Most of his targets work in the entertainment industry.

Sometimes the individual downloaded the entire contents of the victims’ Apple iCloud backups. Besides, he ran a modeling scam and tricked the women into sending him nude images. It was found that the hacker had gained access to at least 50 Apple iCloud accounts and 72 Gmail accounts, many of which belonged to celebrities.

Two years ago, photos of more than a hundred actors, singers and other famous women were posted on the Internet in the public domain. The images were variously confirmed and condemned by some of the celebrities and called fakes by others. At the time, the victims criticized Apple for failing to secure private data on iCloud, with Apple admitting that it had suffered a targeted attack on usernames, passwords and security cases. However, following the results of the investigation, Apple announced that none of the hacks resulted from the breach in its systems.

On the other hand, the US attorney noted that in fact the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not uncover any evidence linking Collins to the actual publication of private data or photos or that he shared or uploaded the obtained content.

Ryan Collins was originally charged in Los Angeles, but later the case was transferred to Pennsylvania, where a judge finally sentenced him a few days ago. It must be noted that the maximum penalty was 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Meanwhile, the FBI has traced similar hacking attacks on celebrities to two other individuals in the United States, each of whom pleaded guilty earlier in 2016, and investigators said all the cases were unrelated.