The pseudonymous hacker “Guccifer,” whose list of hacking victims includes President George W. Bush and former secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and Colin Powell, has recently seemed to veer into surprising territory, hitting Sex and the City creator Candace Bushnell and journalist Carl Bernstein.
But now, tanned, rested and ready, he has returned to his old stomping grounds, the email accounts of political figures.
This time, according to The Smoking Gun (TSG), Guccifer has hacked Christopher Kojm’s MSN.com account. Kojm is the chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which is charged with evaluating trends and threats for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The director coordinates cross-departmental responses to national security issues.
Until 1998 Kojm was a staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, after which he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence Policy and Coordination in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and Deputy Director of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. He became a part of Obama’s transition team in 2008, specializing in national security issues and, in 2009, took up his current position.
Screenshots of the hack indicate it was probably perpetrated within the past couple of weeks.
“The recent hack” wrote TSG, “gave ‘Guccifer’ access to Kojm’s personal correspondence, his banking information, Obama transition material, and e-mail exchanges with 9/11 Commission members and staff. It does not appear, however, that the hacker gained access to any classified intelligence information in Kojm’s possession.”
The note sent to TGS with the screenshots calls Obama “The Black Angel” and “taunts the Secret Service, which is leading law enforcement efforts to capture him.” Guccifer ends his note saying, “Good night America where ever you are.”
Earlier this month Guccifer hit another Obama administration official, Joshua Gotbaum, the director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a government agency which manages $85 billion in assets in service of pension benefits for over 40 million workers.
H/T TSG | Photo by Center for American Progress/Flickr