The New York Post reported that a teenager from American High School was able to break into CIA Chief’s John Brennan’s private e-mail account. The magazine was contacted by a person with evidence, including 47-page top secret security clearance application.
According to a report, Brennan’s emails also contained SSN (Social Security Numbers) and private info about 15 top secret US intelligence representatives. The teen has also revealed an official letter about the use of rough interrogation methods, probably used by the agency against terrorism suspects.
“I think they’ll want to make an example out of him to deter people from doing this in the future. I can’t believe he did this to the head of the CIA. [The] problem with these older-generation guys is that they don’t know anything about cybersecurity, and as you can see, it can be problematic.” said the source.
The Hight School student gained access using simple social engineering techniques and convinced Verizon employees, to provide private information about Brennan using which he was able to reset the account password. FBI is investigating the issue and they have closed chief’s account.
As it seems most of the government officials including Hillary Clinton, don’t even bother about using secure servers and communications. If this claim is true the cyber security community would have only one question left: Why in the world would a CIA Chief use a public e-mail account for top secret communications?
Hacker has also claimed that he was able to gain access to Jeh Johnson’s (Homeland Security Secretary) Comcast account and provided screenshots of his billing page. He was also able to listen to Secretary’s voicemails without victim’s knowledge.
We will update you on this matter as the issue develops.
Senior officials are doing this crap, and then want to call Snowden a criminal. It’s shameful.