Technology: Hackers Targeting CIA Director Showed up in Court

Two hackers accused of breaching the personal email and phone accounts of senior US government officials, including the CIA director and homeland security secretary, appeared in US district court.



According to an affidavit supporting the arrest warrants for the US citizens, the team of hackers broke into the personal accounts of a number of government officials and their spouses partially in a search for evidence of aliens. The team consisted of the US and UK hackers, so the UK law enforcement have aided the investigation.

3 UK teenagers and 2 US men are listed as members of an alleged conspiracy to hack government officials. Minor UK conspirators were not charged in the government’s sealed complaint, though they appear to have done most of the actual work, taking most of the information and conducting the social engineering on Verizon employees. They allegedly suggested “swatting” one of the victims – calling in a report of a violent crime to have a Swat team dispatched.

Twitter direct message logs revealed that the teenagers were looking for evidence of aliens like Gary MacKinnon, a Scottish hacker who breached Nasa computers trying to find evidence of extraterrestrials.

CIA Director was referred to as “Victim 1” in the affidavit, although evidence described in the document align with coverage of the breach last year. His wife also received an email notification from Verizon indicating an update to the couple’s account.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation described in depth how it believed the team had worked together and how they were associated with their various social media, phone and email accounts.