Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta had his Twitter hacked late Wednesday after other alleged attacks against several of his online accounts.
Podesta’s Twitter hacked: Likely reused passwords, didn’t strengthen passwords after email hack, didn’t use two-factor-authentication pic.twitter.com/KAk5RCRDj8
— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) October 13, 2016
The tweet, which stated, “I’ve switched teams.Vote Trump 2016.Hi pol,” was pulled offline soon after it appeared at 7:55 p.m.
The tweet’s mention of “pol,” a reference to the “politically incorrect” board on the website 4chan, suggests the hack may be connected to the recent discovery of Podesta’s Apple ID and password in an email published on WikiLeaks.
Some screenshots posted on Twitter allege to show backend access to Podesta’s iCloud account and even his iPhone being remotely wiped. Other tweets claim Podesta’s personal emails from a Microsoft Outlook account have been passed on to WikiLeaks as well.
It seems that folks on 4chan may have hacked Podesta’s outlook and iCloud accounts too. Password reuse. https://t.co/g0BQHXbeNz pic.twitter.com/ffIUQFBG4r
— Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) October 13, 2016
It is believed the hackers logged into Podesta’s Twitter after performing a password reset, which would have been possible if Podesta’s email account was compromised.
In a tweet on Thursday though WikiLeaks alleged to have confirmed that Podesta’s Apple password had been changed by the time the email dump went live.
@mkarolian No they didn’t. We checked that the credentials had already been changed.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 13, 2016
WikiLeaks’ claim has been questioned by several cybersecurity researchers given screenshots appearing to show the breach.
— Pwn All The Things (@pwnallthethings) October 13, 2016
Clinton spokesman Nick Merril later responded by confirming the breach, stating those close to Podesta were “working on fixing it.”
New comment on Podesta hack from @NickMerrill: “We can confirm that John’s Twitter account was hacked, which would explain the message.”
— Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) October 13, 2016
This latest breach follows WikiLeaks’ 5th release of Podesta’s work emails. The FBI said Wednesday that it suspected Russian intelligence agencies were responsible for the email hack.
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