An American high school student says he hacked the personal email account of Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) Director, John Brennan. That’s what the law enforcement sources have also confirmed.
Brennan’s private account held sensitive files, including his 47-page application of SF-86 that Brennan had filled to obtain top-secret security clearance; until he recently learned that it had been infiltrated.
The applications are used by the government to conduct background check. They contain a lot of sensitive data about workers seeking security clearance, about their friends, spouses and other family members. They also include criminal history, psychological records and information about past drug use as well as potentially sensitive information about the applicant’s interactions with foreign nationals which can be used against those nationals in their own country.
The hacker said the director had the information stored on his personal AOL account which reportedly had social security numbers of more than a dozen American senior intelligence officials. Moreover, it also consisted of a document on ‘harsh interrogation techniques’ on terrorism suspects.
The high school kid who had hacked into Brennan’s account has not given his name or location where he lives but according to social media information, he said he was motivated to go after the CIA director’s because he is opposed to US foreign policy and supports Palestine. Even though he says he is not Muslim, his twitter page reportedly uses quotes from Quran and about Allah being the one true God.
He also mentions that he and his classmate will be tweeting “CWA owns John Brennan of the CIA” as a means of verifying his control over the @phphax Twitter account.
CWA stood for “Crackas with Attitude”.
Not only did he break in the account of Brennan but also posted some of the stolen documents and a portion of Brennan’s contact list on Twitter.
The teen claimed he has repeatedly prank-called America’s top spy since August, once reciting Brennan’s Social Security number to him.
The teen told New York post first that he used the tactic called ‘Social engineering’ to hack the account. He posed as a Verizon worker to trick another employee into hacking CIA director general’s personal information and getting duped AOL into resetting his password.
The hacker did not work alone but other unknown people were also involved with him in this work. Their team first did a reverse lookup of Brennan’s mobile number to discover that he was a Verizon customer after which one of them posed as a Verizon technician and called the company asking for details about Brennan’s account.
Brennan’s account was disabled as of Friday.
In a statement, the CIA said: “We are aware of the reports that have surfaced on social media and have referred the matter to the appropriate authorities.”
The Law enforcement agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other federal agencies have started investigating about the hacker. There is a possibility that criminal charges are put on him.
Apart from Brennan’s account, the hackers also broke into the Comcast account of Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnson.
The news of the breach comes in the midst of another email scandal involving Hillary Clinton who has been under fire for months over a private server and email account she maintained to do official work.
If the director of the CIA had kept a secret database of information on his personal account, it is a violation of the federal law of U S that requires people who have possession of top secret information to keep it only in a secure government venue. Breaking the law is a felony.
Brennan’s private account held sensitive files, including his 47-page application of SF-86 that Brennan had filled to obtain top-secret security clearance; until he recently learned that it had been infiltrated.
The applications are used by the government to conduct background check. They contain a lot of sensitive data about workers seeking security clearance, about their friends, spouses and other family members. They also include criminal history, psychological records and information about past drug use as well as potentially sensitive information about the applicant’s interactions with foreign nationals which can be used against those nationals in their own country.
The hacker said the director had the information stored on his personal AOL account which reportedly had social security numbers of more than a dozen American senior intelligence officials. Moreover, it also consisted of a document on ‘harsh interrogation techniques’ on terrorism suspects.
The high school kid who had hacked into Brennan’s account has not given his name or location where he lives but according to social media information, he said he was motivated to go after the CIA director’s because he is opposed to US foreign policy and supports Palestine. Even though he says he is not Muslim, his twitter page reportedly uses quotes from Quran and about Allah being the one true God.
He also mentions that he and his classmate will be tweeting “CWA owns John Brennan of the CIA” as a means of verifying his control over the @phphax Twitter account.
CWA stood for “Crackas with Attitude”.
Not only did he break in the account of Brennan but also posted some of the stolen documents and a portion of Brennan’s contact list on Twitter.
The teen claimed he has repeatedly prank-called America’s top spy since August, once reciting Brennan’s Social Security number to him.
The teen told New York post first that he used the tactic called ‘Social engineering’ to hack the account. He posed as a Verizon worker to trick another employee into hacking CIA director general’s personal information and getting duped AOL into resetting his password.
The hacker did not work alone but other unknown people were also involved with him in this work. Their team first did a reverse lookup of Brennan’s mobile number to discover that he was a Verizon customer after which one of them posed as a Verizon technician and called the company asking for details about Brennan’s account.
Brennan’s account was disabled as of Friday.
In a statement, the CIA said: “We are aware of the reports that have surfaced on social media and have referred the matter to the appropriate authorities.”
The Law enforcement agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other federal agencies have started investigating about the hacker. There is a possibility that criminal charges are put on him.
Apart from Brennan’s account, the hackers also broke into the Comcast account of Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnson.
The news of the breach comes in the midst of another email scandal involving Hillary Clinton who has been under fire for months over a private server and email account she maintained to do official work.
If the director of the CIA had kept a secret database of information on his personal account, it is a violation of the federal law of U S that requires people who have possession of top secret information to keep it only in a secure government venue. Breaking the law is a felony.