A former teen hacker who stole nude photos from Paris Hilton’s cellphone and swiped a half million dollars from unsuspecting consumers tells NBC News – and his most famous victim -- that he’s sorry for what he did.
“Paris, I’m sorry I put
your information online,” said Cameron Lacroix. “I should never have
done it. I wouldn’t want it done to me.”
But Lacroix, now 26 and
about to report to federal prison to begin a four-year sentence, warns
that despite security upgrades at major retail chains that have been
victimized, he could do it again.
“It was easy. Too easy,”
said Lacroix, who doubts the fixes are enough and believes big
companies are “absolutely” still vulnerable to hacking.
In a 10-year criminal
career, Lacroix, a lifelong resident of New Bedford, Massachusetts, has
done everything from hacking the Twitter account of Burger King to
forging gift cards to stealing thousands of credit card numbers. He’s
even hacked federal law enforcement databases. Authorities estimate that
Lacroix, who was known by online handles like “cam0” and “Freak,” has
done more than $1 million in damage to private firms.
But Lacroix, a computer
obsessive since age 11, says he that when he began hacking he didn’t
think he was committing crimes. “It was like a game,” he said. “Like a
challenge, I guess.” Hacking was also a refuge from his unhappy home
life. His mother died of a drug overdose when he was young, and he
dropped out of high school.
Lacroix’s most notorious
exploit was among his first. In 2005 at age 16, he became the first
hacker to break in to a celebrity cellphone when he cracked the code to
Hilton’s Sidekick.
“It all started because I
wanted a T-Mobile phone,” he said. “Once I got in there, I realized,
‘Hey, I have access to everybody’s stuff!’” After Hilton did a
commercial for the Sidekick, Lacroix guessed she probably owned one.
“Sure enough, it was under her name. I went into it and was shocked at
what I saw.”
Lacroix published
Hilton’s phonebook and messages on the Internet and dumped a trove of
nude photos on a website. He watched as the hits started coming.
Hacking gave him a high
and a sense of recognition. “I wanted to be a celebrity,” he said. When
the Hilton photos went viral online, “it was mind-blowing for me. … I
felt famous.
Among
those who noticed him, however, were federal officials. They arrested
Lacroix and six associates. Lacroix pleaded guilty to hacking Hilton’s
phone and making bomb threats to two high schools, and also admitted
attacking the LexisNexis database. He served 11 months in a federal
juvenile facility, and soon after he got out was sent back to serve more
time for violating the terms of his supervised release.
Before he was 21, he was
sent to prison again after pleading guilty to racking up thousands in
phony gift card purchases. The gift cards were purchased with stolen
credit card numbers, but cashiers wouldn’t challenge them – an easy
end-run around corporate security.
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