A person identified as a teenager by the New York Post has claimed to have hacked a private email account belonging to CIA Director John Brennan, as well as other accounts belonging to top officials.
The hacker, who described himself as an American high school student motivated by his support for Palestine, had bragged on Twitter for several weeks about gaining access to accounts belonging to government officials. The tweets were not noticed by the media until the hacker called the New York Post.
Both the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the claims but said they had referred the matter to law enforcement.
The hacker claimed to have gained access to the accounts after tricking workers at Verizon into providing Brennan’s personal information and duping AOL into resetting his password. He also repeatedly prank called Brennan, he told the New York Post.
A law enforcement official told CNN that it did not appear that any classified information had been accessed by the hacker, but a list that included Brennan’s alleged social security number, private email address, and phone number were posted to Twitter. The list also included 20 other people, revealing their phone numbers, email addresses and social security numbers.
Another image posted to Twitter appeared to show a CIA fax cover sheet which the hacker claimed to have stolen from Brennan’s AOL account. The cover sheet included handwritten notes. In yet another post on Twitter, the hacker showed a portion of what he claimed was Brennan’s contact list.
The hacker also claimed in tweets earlier this month to have accessed the Comcast accounts of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. In one of the tweets, the hacker claimed to have modified Johnson’s Comcast account to automatically forward calls from his parents to anti-war movement the War Resisters League.
The hacker also claimed to have accessed the Comcast account of White House Deputy National Security Advisor Avril Haines and published logs of some of her calls.
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