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Former Yahoo engineer pleads guilty to hacking 6,000 accounts in hunt for nudes

He faces five years for stealing sexually explicit pics.

Rae Hodge Former senior editor
Rae Hodge was a senior editor at CNET. She led CNET's coverage of privacy and cybersecurity tools from July 2019 to January 2023. As a data-driven investigative journalist on the software and services team, she reviewed VPNs, password managers, antivirus software, anti-surveillance methods and ethics in tech. Prior to joining CNET in 2019, Rae spent nearly a decade covering politics and protests for the AP, NPR, the BBC and other local and international outlets.
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A hacker admitted to targeting younger women while in search of sexually explicit pictures and videos. 

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A former Yahoo software engineer has pleaded guilty to hacking 6,000 user accounts in a hunt for sexual images. Following an FBI investigation, Reyes Daniel Ruiz, 34, also admitted to hacking the iCloud, Facebook, Dropbox and Gmail accounts of his victims, primarily young female colleagues and friends. 

Ruiz worked at Yahoo for more than 10 years and left the company in 2018, according to CNET sister site ZDNet.  His roles reportedly included a position as a reliability engineer for the company's Yahoo Mail service. During his time at Yahoo, he copied sexually explicit photos and videos without permission and stored the data at his home, the Department of Justice said in a Monday statement. 

He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for one count of computer intrusion and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution. His hearing is scheduled for Feb. 3, 2020.  

Yahoo didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

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