Man gets six years for hacking 750 women's Snapchat accounts

Summary

An Illinois man, Kyle Svara, has been sentenced to 76 months in prison for hacking over 750 women's Snapchat accounts to steal nude photos. He used social engineering tactics to phish credentials and then accessed accounts to download explicit images, often locking victims out. Investigators also found Svara distributed child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and advertised his hacking services online.

Full text

Man gets six years for hacking 750 women's Snapchat accounts By Sergiu Gatlan July 24, 2026 07:17 AM 0 An Illinois man was sentenced on Tuesday to 76 months in prison and three years of supervised release for hacking the Snapchat accounts of over 750 women to steal nude photos, which he later traded or sold online. After being charged in December, 26-year-old defendant Kyle Svara admitted in February to having used various social engineering tactics to phish Snapchat access codes from over 750 women. Between May 2020 and February 2021, he targeted more than 4,500 victims while posing as a representative of Snap Inc and using anonymized phone numbers. After stealing the victims' credentials, Svara accessed approximately 517 women's Snapchat accounts without permission to download nude or semi-nude photos and activated two-factor authentication to lock them out of the compromised accounts. Svara phishing Snapchat access codes (Justice Department) The investigators also found that Svara distributed child sexual abuse material (CSAM), finding approximately 530 images and 600 videos depicting CSAM in his Mega account. "When Svara was interviewed by investigators, he falsely stated that he did not know anything about hacking Snapchat," the Justice Department said in February. "Additionally, he falsely stated that had no interest in child pornography and had never actively sought out or accessed child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Contrary to these statements, the defendant collected, distributed and solicited CSAM." According to court documents, he also advertised his "services" online, trading the stolen images, offering to "get into girls snap accounts," and asking potential clients to reach out through the Kik encrypted messaging app. Svara offering to hack Snapchat accounts (Justice Department) ​Steve Waithe, a former Northeastern University track and field coach and one of his clients, hired Svara to hack the Snapchat accounts of students at Northeastern and members of the women's track and field and soccer teams. After being found guilty of targeting at least 128 women and stealing thousands of explicit photos from more than 100 women, Waithe was sentenced in March 2024 to five years in prison for cyber fraud, cyberstalking, and sextortion. Between paid hacking jobs, Svara also independently hacked into the accounts of many women in Plainfield, Illinois (including neighbors, family friends, classmates, his own personal friends), as well as students at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Test every layer before attackers do Security teams log 54% of successful attacks and alert on just 14%. The rest move through your environment unseen.The Picus whitepaper shows how breach and attack simulation tests your SIEM and EDR rules so threats stop slipping by detection. Get the whitepaper Related Articles: Hugging Face warns an autonomous AI agent hacked its networkFBI warns of in-person data theft attacks from extortion gangNew Helix vishing group emerges in SharePoint data theft attacksEntra passkey enrollment vishing targets Microsoft 365 usersWebinar tomorrow: Why modern email attacks require a new approach to defense

Indicators of Compromise

• malware — CSAM

Entities