Naked photographs of Hollywood actress Jennifer Lawrence - as well as a host of British and A-list stars - have been leaked online in the biggest celebrity hacking scandal in history.

Intimate pictures began appearing on image website 4Chan yesterday after a hacker broke into 101 famous people’s iCloud accounts.

Within hours Twitter was awash with hundreds of thousands of tweets about the photographs which are also alleged to include Brits Michelle Keegan, Cara Delevigne, Cat Deeley and Kelly Brook.

Other stars include singer Rihanna, Lea Michele, Hillary Duff, Kaley Cuoco, Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, Kate Bosworth, Victoria Justice, Emily Browning, Candice Swanepoel and Kate Upton.

The hacker claimed to have at least 60 photographs of Oscar winner Lawrence - some which they posted online in exchange for the online currency bitcoins.

(Image: Splash)

The pictures appeared to be taken at various locations with some appearing to have been shot by the actress while others were snapped by another person.

The photographs, seen by the Mirror, range from Lawrence, 24, in a bikini and lingerie to the star being fully naked.

A spokesman for the American Hustle star, who has been rumoured to be dating Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, later confirmed the images were genuine.

He said: “This is a flagrant violation of privacy.

“The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence,”

Images of the alleged British victims were last night not seen on Twitter.

The leak led several of the victims to hit out on Twitter including Die Hard star Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

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She wrote: “To those of you looking at photos I took with my husband years ago in the privacy of our home, hope you feel great about yourselves.”

She also expressed sympathy for others, tweeting “Knowing those photos were deleted long ago, I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this. Feeling for everyone who got hacked.”

Some stars denied the images were of them including former child star Victoria Justice.

She tweeted: "These so called nudes of me are FAKE people. Let me nip this in the bud right now. *pun intended.*”

As the images went viral a number of victims began trending on Twitter.

One fan wrote: "Today is a good day," wrote on fan. "The best way to star the week," added another.