Pippa Middleton in ‘nude blackmail plot’ as cops hunt hacker who tried to flog 3,000 ‘intimate’ snaps for ‘minimum of £50k’
Crook contacted The Sun by e-mail demanding cash within 48 hours for the images
POLICE were last night investigating an attempt to flog intimate snaps of Pippa Middleton by a man who claimed to have hacked her phone.
The shadowy cyber thief contacted The Sun by email yesterday and demanded “a minimum of £50,000” within 48 hours for the images and data from her iCloud account.
Pippa was horrified last night after a crook tried to sell intimate photos said to have been hacked from her phone.
The man contacted The Sun claiming to have 3,000 images of the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister, 33.
He said snaps included her at a wedding dress fitting and ones of her fiancé nude.
He claimed to have private photographs of Pippa, 33 — including her being fitted in a wedding dress and naked snaps of her millionaire fiance James Matthews.
The mystery man also bragged that he was in possession of pictures of Pippa’s sister, Duchess of Cambridge Kate, and brother-in-law Prince William. To prove the authenticity of his claims, the crook calling himself “Crafty Cockney” emailed two photos showing the socialite at what appeared to be her wedding dress fitting session.
The gown was masked by a superimposed box but the picture appeared to show smiling Pippa with mum Carole taking camera phone snaps in the background.
A third picture appeared to show Carole, 61, in the aisle of what is presumed to be the couple’s church wedding venue.
Private messages to and from Pippa are also believed to have been harvested by the crook in what is feared to be the highest profile celebrity hack to date.
Celebrities including Hollywood A-lister Jennifer Lawrence have recently seen private naked photos splashed on the web after their phone’s “cloud” was plundered.
Lawyers have been informed about this
The Sun had no intention of entering into a deal with the alleged thief and alerted Pippa.
She and royal aides were investigating the leak last night amid fears her entire private photo album could be put online.
A spokesman for Pippa and James said to The Sun: “Thank you very much for drawing this to the family’s attention.
“I can confirm that not only have the lawyers been informed but the police are about to be involved as well.”
The Sun received an email sent by the hacker through a sophisticated encryption service, saying he was in possession of 3,000 pictures plus mobile phone data. He said his haul included:
Pippa in her wedding dress at various fitting appointments, and secret details of the wedding venue, guestlist and thoughts;
Pictures of Kate and the Royal Family with the royal children;
Private pictures of Pippa and James together and naked pictures of James — plus pictures of Pippa and friends partying.
He added: “I would cosider (sic) these highly highly sought.”
The thief said he was seeking a quick sale to either a British or US magazine.
He said he was offering first refusal to buyers in the UK, where he believed more “tasteful” publication was likely. Alternatively, the snaps could be returned to Pippa once he was paid.
He added: “There is of course a price for which im (sic) accepting offers of a minimum of 50,000 GBP. This isnt (sic) an auction it will be a simple process of the highest bid in the next 48 hours (as of 4pm 23/09/16)”.
The crook refused to meet or talk on the phone and insisted on communicating using an encrypted message service.
SAFETY TIPS
CHOOSE a password with a combination of letters and numbers.
USE two-stage verification — offered by Apple, Dropbox and Google — which combines your password with a pin number either sent to your phone in a text, or created by an app on your phone.
ADD a second “rescue” email to your account, so if a hacker does take over your primary email, you can regain control over your Apple ID and iCloud account.
STOP pictures automatically uploading to iCloud by turning off Photo Stream via Settings menu.
WHEN deleting a picture, check all your phones and tablets synced with your iCloud, as snaps may also appear in their photo stream.
He instructed us to register on a message scrambling message service called Jabber before resuming contact last night.
But the trail went cold as soon as we began quizzing him about the authenticity of his material.
He had earlier used a complex message forwarding system to cover his tracks by routing his emails through a Northamptonshire-based garden centre’s website.
In 2008, two men tried to hawk a memory card taken from Pippa’s camera containing holiday images of her and senior royals.
News of the suspected hack will rock her plans for a dream wedding to hedge fund tycoon James, 40 — whose younger brother is former Made In Chelsea star Spencer Matthews.
KIM AND JEN HIT
A NUMBER of famous faces have fallen victim to iCloud hackers stealing private photos and sharing them online.
The security breach in August 2015 saw more than 500 accounts hit and personal images and videos stolen.
Naked pictures of celebrities including actress Jennifer Lawrence were shared by the hackers in online forums, which then went viral.
The Hunger Games star confirmed she had been targeted and called it a “sex crime”. Kim Kardashian and Cat Deeley also fell victim to the iCloud breach and had private images shared.
This latest hack comes as Yahoo yesterday said a “state-sponsored” team accessed data belonging to 500million users in 2014 — making it one of the largest cyber compromises to date.