An Illinois man has been sentenced to 76 months in prison and three years of supervised release for hacking the Snapchat accounts of over 750 women and distributing child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Kyle Svara, 26, was charged in December and pleaded guilty in February to using social engineering tactics to phish Snapchat access codes.
Between May 2020 and February 2021, Svara targeted more than 4,500 individuals, impersonating a representative of Snap Inc. and utilizing anonymized phone numbers. After obtaining credentials, he accessed approximately 517 women's Snapchat accounts without authorization, downloading nude or semi-nude photos. He then activated two-factor authentication on these compromised accounts, effectively locking the victims out.
Investigators discovered that Svara also distributed CSAM. His Mega account contained approximately 530 images and 600 videos depicting child sexual abuse material. During an interview with investigators, Svara falsely denied any knowledge of hacking Snapchat and claimed he had no interest in or had ever sought out CSAM.
Court documents indicate that Svara advertised his "services" online, offering to "get into girls snap accounts" and trading the stolen images. He directed potential clients to contact him via the Kik encrypted messaging app.
One of Svara's clients was Steve Waithe, a former track and field coach at Northeastern University. Waithe hired Svara to hack the Snapchat accounts of students at Northeastern, specifically targeting members of the women's track and field and soccer teams. Waithe was sentenced in March 2024 to five years in prison for cyber fraud, cyberstalking, and sextortion after being found guilty of targeting at least 128 women and stealing thousands of explicit photos from over 100 individuals.
In addition to his paid hacking activities, Svara independently compromised the accounts of numerous women in Plainfield, Illinois, including neighbors, family friends, classmates, and personal acquaintances. He also targeted students at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.
