Phishing the Clintons If John Podesta was hacked by the Russians, he made it too easy.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/phishing-the-clintons-1481761502
Democrats claim Russian hackers stole victory from Hillary Clinton, yet President Obama told alleged comedian Trevor Noah that they released “what were frankly not very interesting emails that didn’t have any explosive information in them.” Well, either the content of the emails influenced the outcome, or not—which is it? And that isn’t the only contradiction in this narrative.
Another is the amazingly reckless information security programs of the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. New details Wednesday in the New York Times still manage to astonish, even from someone who ran her own homebrew email server out of her basement as Secretary of State.
The Times reported that a Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent repeatedly called the DNC and left multiple voicemails warning that its computer system appeared to have been compromised. DNC staffers never called back for seven months because they told the Times they weren’t sure he was a real agent.
The Clinton campaign faults the FBI for not showing up in person at the DNC, as if it is the FBI’s fault the FBI wasn’t taken seriously. Yet two separate hacking rings, uncoordinated and unknown to each other, penetrated the DNC system.
Meanwhile, campaign chairman John Podesta was taken in “phishing” email, a relatively unsophisticated deception to trick someone into giving up a password. His aides thought the message was perhaps suspicious, but the IT team told them it was legitimate and to follow the link. Mr. Podesta also hadn’t activated two-factor authentication on his Gmail account, which might have provided another layer of security.
Not to blame the victims, but the reality of the modern era is that cyberattacks are a constant menace that requires vigilance. When the Chinese can steal millions of individual records from the Office of Personnel Management, any campaign must know that it is likely to be a target and take countermeasures to protect sensitive information.
Joe Kennedy told his kids never to write anything down that might one day appear on the front page of the Times. The modern analogue is to turn on two-factor authentication.
Comments are closed.
