San Francisco, Mar 30 (IANS): A Georgia man has pleaded guilty of hacking into Apple accounts of several famous musicians and athletes and spending thousands of dollars from their accounts.

"The victims included rappers as well as college and professional athletes, including people in the NBA and NFL," the Justice Department said while declining to name people.

The hacker, Kwamaine Jerell Ford, began targeting accounts in March 2015 with a phishing scheme, pretending to be an Apple support representative needing logins, passwords and/or the answers to security questions, the Apple Insider reported on Friday.

After getting the information, Ford would log into the Apple accounts to take them over. He convinced people that it was necessary to reset an account or access videos people were sending.

But in reality, he set about hijacking accounts by resetting passwords, changing email contacts and editing security questions, the report added.

According to the iPhone-maker, there were hundreds of unauthorised logins to victims' Apple accounts.