Hacker Group Crackas With Attitude Bust A Cap In US Intelligence Director's Home Phone And E-mail Accounts
First there was NWA, and now there’s CWA: Crackas With Attitude. But we’re not talking about gangsta rap groups today; instead, we’re talking about the hacker group that is claiming responsibility for accessing personal accounts belonging to James Clapper, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence.
The leader of Crackas With Attitude, who simply goes by the name “Cracka,” revealed that he was able to infiltrate Clapper’s personal email, home telephone and Verizon FiOS Internet accounts. And to add some icing on that bitter security cake, Cracka also claims to have hacked the Yahoo email account of Clapper’s wife.
Cracka also claims to have forwarded all calls destined for Clapper’s to the Free Palestine Movement. In subsequent Twitter posts, Cracka claims that he was perusing around Clapper’s personal accounts for four days undetected. For someone that carries the title of National Intelligence Director, this is an incredibly embarrassing turn of events.
A spokesman for Clapper’s office confirmed the hack to Motherboard, writing, “We’re aware of the matter and we reported it to the appropriate authorities.”
Security blogger Graham Cluley and security expert Michael Adams both believe that this more of a prank and a result of “social engineering” than a real hack that was a threat to national security. However, Adams adds, “Every serious hack starts with social engineering.”
“If the details of the security breach are true, then it is obviously a concern that the hacker was not only able to reroute calls made to Clapper’s home, but also view the phone numbers of people calling him and access personal email accounts,” added Cluley.
“For that reason, it’s perhaps a relief that those behind the hack were more interested in simply pranking the Director of National Intelligence rather than having something more menacing in mind.”
If all of this sounds familiar, because a similar incident occurred in October of last year when the personal email account of CIA Director John Brennan was hacked. And who was the person responsible for that act? It was none other than Cracka himself.
