Want to be a Hacker?

[Optimistic Paranoid]

The NEW YORK POST reports that a pot-smoking teen-age high school student successfully hacked the CIA Director's personal AOL acoount.  Did it take mad computer skills?  Nah, just good old fashioned social engineering.

Here's how it's done:

1:  After obtaining an address and phone number for CIA Director John Brennan from publicly available databases, the hacker said he called Verizon posing as a company technician working on a problem involving Brennan's phone line.

2:  Using inside company lingo, the hacker claimed that a Verizon tool that provides technicians with client information wasn't working.

3:  The hacker claims he tricked a Verizon tech support worker into revealing Brennan's account number and four digit PIN number.

4:  The hacker then called Verizon's billing department, where - posing as Brennan - he duped a worker into providing the last four digits of Brennan's bank account number by claiming he was unsure if he or his wife had paid their bill.

5:  Armed with that information, the hacker called AOL pretending to be Brennan and claiming he needed to change his password because his account had been hacked.

6:  Although he was unable to answer Brennan's security question, the hacker used the CIA chief's home address, phone number and bank account information to convince AOL to reset the password.

It's that simple.

Oh, and on Brennan's non-government account, he found personal information and Social Security numbers for more than a dozen top American intelligence officials, as well as a government letter about the use of "harsh interrogation techniques" on terrorism suspects.  He also found Brennan's 47 page application for Top Secret security clearance.

And people wonder why I'm paranoid . . .

Regards
John

 

[TMG51]

The most disconcerting piece of information here is that a CIA director uses AOL.

 

[MikeRuth]

I actually don't doubt this has happened and like TMG51, WTF is the CIA director doing with an AOL account? as well as having incredibly sensitive information in it!

 

[Optimistic Paranoid]

I actually don't doubt this has happened and like TMG51, WTF is the CIA director doing with an AOL account? as well as having incredibly sensitive information in it!

The article quoted an unnamed government source as saying: "The problem with these older-generation guys is that they don't know anything about cyber-security, and as you can see, it can be problematic."

Regards
John

 

[LeeRevell]

<sigh...>   I miss the days when being a "hacker" was a good thing.  Steven Levi's book "Hackers" gives the history of those early programmers.

 

[Marie]

If I forget my password, there is nothing I can do, say, or promise that will get a Verizon employee to part with one iota of information!!! They won't confirm that I even have an account! They look at me as if, well, as if I'm a hacker trying to get illicit information! I've gotta talk to this guy and see how he does it... ?

 

[VanLifeCrisis]

when i worked at bank of america, we had to confirm 3 pieces of identifying info. The trick is, we have to pick which of a dozen, if they volunteer it first, we cant use that info. we couldnt tell them this. It lead to some ridiculous exchanges.
Some people who called before will cleverly rattle off the answers to the most common ones. But get mad as i still had to dig deeper and deeper for more obscure verification if they kept blabbing (one time i ran out of ideas, and asked them what gas station they made a purchase from the other day for example) lol If they failed to answer correctly 3 times, i had to hang up.

i imagine this scenario is why, the hacker has to hope id ask the few scraps he had.