What’s with Tennessee and hackers? Not long ago University of Tennessee student David Kernell was arrested for hacking into Sarah Palin’s email and posting the images on the internet. Now, 19-year-old Josh Holly is in trouble with the FBI for breaking into Miley Cyrus’ email and posting racy photos of her online.

Last year, the boastful hacker gained access to a Gmail account of Cyrus’ and stole images she supposedly sent to her then-boyfriend Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers. The scandalous pics included ones of the 15-year-old tween star in a wet T-shirt, baring her midriff and posing provocatively.
 

After months of online bragging, the FBI showed up at Holly’s door. Faced with the Feds, Holly wasn’t so brave anymore. Wired reports:

The hacker, Josh Holly, repeatedly bragged online about breaking into the Disney star's e-mail account and stealing her photos. He also gave interviews to bloggers and others and boasted that authorities would never find him because he moved so often. [Last month, Holly contacted Threat Level seeking to have an article written about him here.]

But this morning the FBI did find him and, after talking with him for more than an hour about his exploits, served him with a search warrant and a list of items to be seized (which was posted at the hacking site digitalgangster.com after Holly showed it to a friend).

Holly said he agreed to speak with the agents for more than an hour because "I was just kind of scared and shocked at that time." He told Threat Level, "I was just kind of shaking. I was thrown way off guard. I've never had anything like this happen before to a point that I just didn't know what to do. I was afraid to kick them out of my house."

Holly hasn’t been arrested or charged with a crime…yet. But something tells me the Cyrus family and the Disney Gods won’t let this go so easily. You don’t mess with the Big Mouse and expect to get away with it.