"The US director of national intelligence has had several of his personal online accounts hacked, his office has confirmed.
A spokesman said the matter had been "reported to the appropriate authorities", but declined to say more.
As director of national intelligence, James Clapper serves as a key adviser to the US president on security matters including cyberthreats.
It follows a similar cyber-attack on the CIA's director (Brennan) in October.
The Motherboard news site reported on Tuesday that it had been contacted by a young hacker who had claimed responsibility. Motherboard reported the teenager had said he was part of the same group - Crackas With Attitude (CWA) - behind the earlier breach.
The youth said he had broken into Mr Clapper's personal email, his Verizon phone and internet account settings and a Yahoo email account belonging to Mr Clapper's wife.
The BBC understands that Mr Clapper's office has only seen evidence that the hacker actually accessed Sue Clapper's email and the couple's family phone number.
It appears that the teenager altered the phone number's settings so that calls were rerouted to a spokesman for the Free Palestine Movement, a cause the CWA says it supports.
Motherboard said the hacker had also passed on what he claimed was a log of home calls Mr Clapper had recently made and received."...
...........................
Oct. 19, 2015, "CIA boss John Brennan's personal email 'hacked'," BBC
.................
"(James) Clapper became DNI in 2010 and acts both as head of the 17-agency intelligence community and a lead adviser to President Barack Obama on intelligence issues." 1/27/2015
...............
As of Jan. 2016, James "Clapper (Director of National Intelligence) had taken no steps to keep his phone number or home address hidden as both can reportedly be found via a simple Google search. That’s “insane” according to information security expert Michael Adams; he told Motherboard, “If I’m the Director of National Intelligence of the United States of America nobody is going to know where the [bleep] I live, nobody is going to have my [bleep] phone number or address.”" In 2015, "one of the CWA hackers originally dubbed a teenage stoner – took control of CIA Director John Brennan’s personal email account."
Jan. 13, 2016, "Hackers took over Director of National Intelligence's phone and personal email," ComputerWorld.com, Darlene Storm
 |
| James Clapper |
"If you were Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and confused colleagues inquire as to why they keep reaching the wrong number when they try to call you, then it would have to be embarrassing to explain that hackers had taken over your Verizon My FiOS account and all your calls are being forwarded to the Free Palestine Movement.
Social engineering is apparently no less effective for a group of hackers flying under the banner of Crackas With Attitude (CWA) than it has been in the past when Cracka – one of the CWA hackers originally dubbed a teenage stoner – took control of CIA Director John Brennan’s personal email account.
This time, “Cracka” told Motherboard’s Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai that CWA had taken control of "a series of accounts connected to Clapper, including his home telephone and internet, his personal email, and his wife’s Yahoo email. While in control of Clapper’s Verizon FiOS account, Cracka claimed to have changed the settings so that every call to his house number would get forwarded to the Free Palestine Movement.” CWA is aligned with the #FreePalestine movement.
Cracka claimed the group was “pretty sure” Clapper didn’t know he’d been hacked, but a spokesman for Clapper, Brian Hale, said the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was “aware of the matter and reported it to the appropriate authorities.”"...
[Ed. note: Where are you finding "appropriate authorities" when the top US official on computer safety isn't an "authority"?]
(continuing): "After Cracka handed over Clapper’s home number to Motherboard and Franceschi-Bicchierai called it, Paul Larudee, the co-founder of the Free Palestine Movement, answered. Larudee confirmed that he had been getting calls by people trying to call Clapper.
Clapper had taken no steps to keep his phone number or home address hidden as both can reportedly be found via a simple Google search. That’s “insane” according to information security expert Michael Adams; he told Motherboard, “If I’m the Director of National Intelligence of the United States of America nobody is going to know where the [bleep] I live, nobody is going to have my [bleep] phone number or address.”
CWA also provided Motherboard with a phone number allegedly belonging to Clapper’s wife, screenshots of their Verizon FiOS account, her Yahoo account, and a list of call logs to Clapper’s home number, including Vonna Heaton, a former senior executive at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. She seemed shocked to receive a call from a journalist and politely ended the call.
Cracka, using a different Twitter account this time, taunted various agencies in the U.S. intelligence community, but that’s not surprising since most of the agencies are already on the long list of CWA’s enemies.
Besides previously targeting CIA Director John Brennan, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, White House Deputy National Security Advisor Avril Haines, and FBI Deputy Director Mark Giuliana, CWA claimed to have gained access to the national Joint Automated Booking System (JABS), a database of arrest records, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, and the FBI's Virtual Command Center. After CWA dumped personal details of 2,400 government employees, the Internet Crime Complaint Center warned police and public officials of an increased risk of being the target of cyber-attacks and doxing." Image from Medill DC
.................
No comments:
Post a Comment