Hacker who put Scarlett Johansson images on internet gets 10 years in jail

18 Dec 2012

Pictured: Scarlett Johansson, whose tearful testimony led to the 10-year conviction of Christopher Chaney

A hacker who hacked the personal email account of Scarlett Johansson and other Hollywood celebrities and placed them on the internet has been sentenced to 10 years in jail.

A federal court in Los Angeles led by Judge S James Otero sentenced Christopher Chaney (35) for hacking into Johansson’s email account as well as actress Mila Kunis, singer Christina Aguilera and two other women who he personally knew after hearing a tearful statement via video from Johansson.

Chaney pleaded guilty to wiretapping and unauthorised access to computers.

It emerged that some of the photos of Johansson were meant for her husband Ryan Reynolds’ eyes only.

Chaney, from Jacksonville in Florida, is also understood to have targeted two women he knew. He is understood to have sent a nude image of one of the women to her father.

It is understood that Chaney hacked into the email accounts of more than 50 people in the entertainment industry in 2010 and 2011.

Chaney was arrested in 2011 following a year-long FBI investigation of celebrity hacking code-named Operation Hackerazzi.

He hacked into the accounts by using the ‘forgot password’ feature of accounts and answering security questions by using publicly available information about the celebrities that he found online.

As well as photos, he targeted scripts and business contracts and went through contact lists to find other victims.

In some cases he used hacked email accounts to request private photos from the celebrities.

He would then forward the images on to celebrity gossip websites.

Scarlett Johansson image via Shutterstock

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com