Porn Purveyor Is Hosting Leaked Nude Photos and Lookalikes on Hacked Websites

A spammer who blasts seemingly mundane emails, which actually link to compromised websites with women in compromising positions, has found a new purpose for the stolen explicit photos of Jennifer Lawrence and other female stars.

Days after the leaked images hit the Internet in late August, advertising banners on the hacked sites displayed the pitch: “VIDEOS FROM APLE’S ICLOUD LEAK!”

As early as Sept. 2, one ad contained the leaked nude photos of Lawrence, model Kate Upton, and U.S. gymnast McKayla Maroney, according to online security firm Cloudmark

The publication of Maroney’s photo could be against the law, because it allegedly was taken before she turned 18.

“Since the photograph of McKayla Maroney may constitute an illegal explicit photo of a child under US law, Cloudmark has reported the details of this content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and followed all the appropriate steps for handling of such content,” the firm states.

On Sept. 11, the spammer started using a banner with an animation. It alternates between images of singer Miley Cyrus and the other celebs -- and images of hardcore porn, using models who resemble the original celebrities

One caption reads in part:  “BIGGEST NUDE CELEBS ARCHIVE ON THE INTERNET FOR JUST $1.”

The spam emails promoting these pages are being churned out by a “botnet” of computers worldwide that also have been compromised.

“The spam itself is very simple. The subject line is blank, and the body contains nothing but a URL,” Cloudmark reports. “Our automated scanning has counted several hundred compromised servers used for this spam over the past three weeks, including schools and church groups.”

Many of the hacked sites bear the hallmarks of WordPress pages, which are known to suffer from software vulnerabilities.

The images themselves are hosted on a server in the .ru domain in Russia.  But, clicking on the banner to purchase porn, takes the victim to a site hosted in Massachusetts.