We all know that hacking is one of the greatest threats facing the world now and in the future. If these attacks could stop the economy of an entire country, or even control the direction of elections in any country, as occurred in the United States in the last presidential elections, as well as in a group of countries European Commission. Last year, we saw how the ransom virus affected hundreds of companies around the world, some of them stopped functioning and significant financial losses were lost
But today we will learn about the story of a British teenager who has access to the accounts of senior US intelligence and security officials. This person is called "Kane Gamble" and is only 18 years old. At the age of 15, he was able to access highly sensitive and confidential information and harass American officials from his mother's home in England.
Ken Gamble has been able to impersonate senior US officials such as former CIA chief John Brennan in order to access personal accounts and confidential government information.
Gamble used the information security tactic known as "social engineering" to manipulate call centers and help desks for information, which was then used to access different accounts. Gamble was able to impersonate former US intelligence chief John Brennan in telephone conversations with a state telecommunications company The United States, where an important request extended his secret, and in this way managed to penetrate the computers of John Brennan.
In another case, the Bureau of the FBI's help fooled them into believing that it was Mark Guiliano, the former deputy director of the agency. The teenager had access to Brennan and Ecloud's e-mail, control his wife's iPad and access information on sensitive military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran .
In the same way, Gamble had access to the home network of former Homeland Security Secretary J. Johnson. He was able to listen to Johnson's voice messages and harass his wife.
Other victims included former Obama administration officials, including US National Security Vice President Avril Haines, National Intelligence Director James Clapper and Fona Weirton, executive director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.
Gambel also has access to the US justice network and files for several judicial cases, including the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
Ken Gamble has been able to manipulate intelligence and organs of the most powerful country in the world for eight months. And managed to leak many sensitive information to US agencies either through their participation with Wikileaks or published on Twitter.
In February 2016 will be arrested, Gamble will be judged at a later date. British prosecutors said Gambel was motivated by his sympathy for the Palestinians and committed these crimes because of the various injustices committed by the US government.
It is really amazing how far you can go with just social engineering. Computer systems and networks are most of the time quite secure, but the biggest vulnerability these days are humans.