Fourth wave of celeb nudes includes first male victim

Nick Hogan, Winona Ryder and Erin Heatherton. Photo / Getty Images, AP

The fourth wave of of celebrity nudes hacked from the iCloud has leaked online - revealing its first male victim.

Less high profile than the previous victims, this bout features Nick Hogan, son of Hulk, as well as Winona Ryder, 90210 actress AnnaLynne McCord, and Victoria's Secret model Erin Heatherton.

It comes four days after a lawyer for more than a dozen targeted celebrities issued Google with a threat to sue for $100 million for "failing to act" and "making millions and profiting from the victimisation of women".

The latest hit will also come as a blow to Apple as the tech firm desperately tries to tighten security on the iCloud - which allows users to attempt access to any account an unlimited amount of times.

Other victims targeted today include the singer Ingrid Michaelson and indie actress Zoe Kazan, who appears in 43 of the images uploaded to photo-sharing blog 4Chan.

And at least 147 personal, fully-clothed images of The Vampire Diaries actress Nina Dobrev have also emerged, according to the Daily Beast.

Many have surmised that the controversy may be coming to a close given the lower profile of the hacker's latest victims.

The first wave of explicit, personal images were released on August 31, featuring Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst, and Kate Upton.

Since, images have surfaced of singers Rihanna and Avril Lavigne, TV actress Kaley Cuoco, American goalkeeper Hope Solo, and socialities Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton.

The images have been cached by thousands of users all over the world and shared on other blogs and websites, meaning many still appear on Google Images.

Reddit closed the forum titled Fappening, a lewd reference to masturbation, a week after the first hit on receiving a warning that the images violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Marty Singer, a powerful Hollywood attorney, claims he also issued more than a dozen warning letters to Google but received no response.

Singer, half of Lavely & Singer law firm in Los Angeles, California, is now pursuing legal action on behalf of a number of A-list victims.

In a letter to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Singer accused the pair of 'blatantly unethical behavior'.

'Because the victims are celebrities with valuable publicity rights you do nothing - nothing but collect millions of dollars in advertising revenue - as you seek to capitalise on this scandal rather than quash it,' the letter said, according to Page Six.

The blogger has also threatened to target Emma Watson - and created a website called Emma You Are Next - after she gave a feminist talk at the UN, but weeks later the images have yet to be released and the threats have ceased.

4chan has been quick to remove the boards where naked pictures have appeared in the past.

Last month, during a previous leak of stolen naked pictures, Twitter said it was shutting down accounts disseminating the images.

Despite stringent rules against abusive and explicit content, the firm has struggled to control the wave of cached images shared by thousands of users.

In response to a request for comment, a Twitter spokesman said in August: "We do not comment on individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons" and referred queries to the company's content boundaries web page.

MailOnline was also awaiting a comment from Facebook - although the naked pictures did not appear to be on the site.

In their online help guide, Facebook suggests that if users come across a harmful photograph to click on the image and select the "report photo" tool.

An online legal expert previously told the OCRegister that despite celebrities' legal complaints, it was really a game of "whack-a-mole" as it was near impossible to completely scrub the private pictures from the internet.

- Daily Mail