Hacker who targeted over 500 Snapchat accounts sentenced to over 6 years in prison
Svara used two-factor authentication to lock victims out of their Snapchat accounts.
Image by Cybernews.
- Kyle Svara was sentenced to 76 months in prison for hacking 517 women’s Snapchat accounts.
- He used social engineering to obtain access codes, then downloaded nude or semi-nude images without permission.
- Svara sold, traded, or provided the images to others, including former Northeastern University coach Steve Waithe.
- Investigators also found child sexual abuse material in Svara’s Mega account, adding to the seriousness of the case.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
A 27-year-old suspect has been sentenced to 76 months in prison for hacking 517 Snapchat accounts of female users to download nude images.
Between May 2020 and February 2021, Kyle Svara of Oswego, Illinois, used social engineering tactics and other methods to collect victims' email addresses, phone numbers, and Snapchat usernames.
Svara needed this information to trick Snapchat into sending security codes to his victims. Using anonymized phone numbers, the suspect posed as a Snapchat representative and texted over 4,500 victims to obtain Snapchat’s access codes.
Approximately 570 women provided Svara with the access codes he needed to log in to their Snapchat accounts. He then accessed the Snapchat accounts of 517 women without permission to download nude or semi-nude photos.
To lock victims out of their hacked accounts, the 27-year-old man activated two-factor authentication.
Once Svara got what he was looking for, he sold or traded the nude photos on internet forums or with others who had hired him to hack the Snapchat accounts. He also offered his “services” on social media platforms like Reddit.
One of Svara’s co-conspirators was Steve Waithe, a former track and field coach at Northeastern University who hired and paid him to hack the Snapchat accounts of women he had coached or had other relationships with. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison and 3 years of supervised release in March 2024.
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In addition to the women that Waithe and others hired Svara to hack, he also targeted women who resided in or around the area of Plainfield, Illinois, including his neighbors, school classmates, friends, and women who were students at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.
Apart from the nude photos from the women whose Snapchat accounts Svara hacked, investigators found 530 images and 600 videos depicting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on his Mega account.
For his offenses, US District Court Judge Brian E. Murphy sentenced Svara to 76 months in prison, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release.
Svara was charged in December 2025. In February 2026, he pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, computer fraud, conspiracy to commit computer fraud, and false statements related to child pornography.
