An Illinois man has been sentenced to 76 months in federal prison after hacking hundreds of Snapchat accounts to steal private photos and distribute them online.
Kyle Svara, 26, was sentenced to six years and four months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. He previously pleaded guilty after admitting that he used social engineering techniques to trick women into revealing Snapchat access codes.
According to U.S. authorities, Svara targeted more than 4,500 people between May 2020 and February 2021 while pretending to be a representative of Snap Inc. Using anonymized phone numbers, he sent phishing messages designed to convince victims to share their account verification codes.
Investigators said Svara successfully gained unauthorized access to around 517 Snapchat accounts belonging to women. After logging in, he downloaded nude and semi-nude photos and enabled two-factor authentication on many accounts, preventing the victims from regaining access.
The investigation also uncovered child sexual abuse material (CSAM) stored in Svara’s Mega cloud account. Authorities found roughly 530 images and 600 videos containing illegal material. Prosecutors said Svara initially denied any involvement in hacking or possessing such content during interviews with investigators, but evidence later proved otherwise.
Court documents revealed that Svara also promoted his hacking services online. He advertised that he could break into Snapchat accounts, traded stolen images, and instructed potential customers to contact him through the encrypted messaging app Kik.
One of Svara’s customers was Steve Waithe, a former Northeastern University track and field coach. Prosecutors said Waithe hired Svara to hack the Snapchat accounts of female students, including members of the university’s track and field and soccer teams. Waithe was separately sentenced in March 2024 to five years in prison after being convicted of cyber fraud, cyberstalking, and sextortion involving at least 128 women.
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Authorities said Svara also carried out attacks on his own, targeting women in his hometown of Plainfield, Illinois—including neighbors, classmates, friends, and family acquaintances—as well as students at Colby College in Maine. The case serves as another reminder of how social engineering attacks can be used to bypass security protections and compromise personal online accounts.
