Gmail Hack Targeted White House

Gmail Hack Targeted White House

online.wsj.com

People who work at the White House were among those targeted by the China-based hackers who broke into Google Inc.'s Gmail accounts, according to one U.S. official.
The hackers likely were hoping the officials were conducting administration business on their private emails, according to lawmakers and security experts.

The government has acknowledged senior administration officials were targeted in the "phishing'' attacks on hundreds of users of the email service. White House officials declined to discuss who was targeted.

(visit the link for the full news article)

What's going on here..?

Is the governments ties to google mean that our government is using their Gmail service for communications?

Sure.. GMail is easy and convenient as are other free email services... are the alleged Chinese hackers hoping that the GMailers who are high priority in the US government may have slipped some info via GMail?

Isn't there an effort to consider these kind of cyber events equal to an act of war? If so.. where would this fall on the scale?

online.wsj.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Either the Chinese know something the rest of us don't or email security in the WH has gone horribly wrong.

GMail-as in 'Gee.what happened to that mail that was just here in my inbox this morning?"

Who the hell is stupid enough to use those kinds of emails. I use them for throwaway and spam kind of things, for important stuff use an ISP provided and secure email....

Originally posted by TKDRL
ISP provided and secure email....

Secure mail is an illusion unless you own the server. Don't believe that you're ISP is any safer from scrutiny.

Well the Republican Party mostly Tea Party are tied to this google group.
groups.google.com...

reply to post by FlyingJadeDragon


Well yeah, nothing on the net is 100% secure. But the free public ones like gmail are the least secure out there.

Doesn't this news... reported by the WSJ.. give pause as to what is intended?

For us on ATS this seems ridiculous that GMail would have some nat'l security implications..

What about the rest of the folks? The one's who have no clue...

Is this reported. for another reason?

I don't know.. but the WSJ.. with this headline... raises an eyebrow.. for me at least...

LOL!!!
Yeah cuz we knows BarryO gits all of his top secret emails via Google Gmail...

Someone is trying to sell us a bill of goods here.

Gmail is secure if you know how to use it. Here are a few basics steps to follow:

1 - Always use HTTPS. In the account settings change this to reflect that
2 - Use a strong password with upper case lowers, numerics and symbols.
3 - Check the time of last logon at the bottom as well as location
4 - If using on a public computer check for keyloggers etc using a tool called "Process explorer" Take it on your thumbdrive.
5 - Have the account linked to your cellphone. In case something is changed, you will get a text message. This is under account recovery options:

a -Recovery email address
b-SMS text
c-Secret question - Make this question an intentionally misleading one. If you make a question like: "what is your favorite food:' Answer will be 1974 Chevy Camaro.

6 - If you are paranoid about entering your PW on a computer use a program called NeoSafe Keys which types it out for you
7 - clear forms, history, cache and cookies from the computer

Advanced:
8 - Enable verification; Requires your password and something such as your cellphone

reply to post by THE_PROFESSIONAL


Good tips.. have you passed on this info to the White House?

reply to post by JacKatMtn


Haha, I would, but I figure they have the NSA for that business. The gmail account cannot be hacked unless a user fails to follow proper security protocol as above. I mean in the hustle-and bustle of office work, we all forget to log out and sometimes dont even bother to check for the steps.

I suspect that a lot of people were not using HTTPS as well as had a weak security question and/or password. The last logon and location thing is especially useful

This is for those who think passwords are safe. And cloud clusters make it even easier.
mytechencounters.wordpress.com...

Yeah, I was reading about it on Google's Blog here

The more I read it, the more I wonder why Google needs my cellphone number to secure my account.
Why do you need my cellphone number Google? What are you going to do with it?

I also notice that in the last sentence of the blog they point to a security blog with a more in-depth report on the problem.

Its dated Feb. 2011! What? You knew about this for 5 months before you let us know? Sheesh!

Lets pretend for just a moment that the owner of the Wall Street Journal is a member of the Bilderberg Group.
I know,I know but lets pretend.

Lets pretend for a moment that the Bilderberg group has an agenda of complete World dominance and control.

Then, lets pretend that this agenda includes convincing the public that their personal information is only monitored by the government to find terrorists.

Then we pretend that if another country, lets call it China(names changed to protect the guilty), has access to the public's personal information because you know the government does not use their own encrypted email servers, it would give the Government more reason to monitor private companies.

Then lets pretend that the general public has been tricked into being paranoid of foreign superpowers.

Then, just for pretend, they extend and add to the powers of the Patriot Act in order to "Protect" the public.

And we pretend that email hacking is already in the news.

The outcome of our pretending is the loss of the freedom of speech.

Thank G_D its all for pretend.

reply to post by IPILYA


Yeah, there is a thread going on now asking the question, "Now that OBL is dead, who is the next BoogeyMan?"

Your post reminds me of that!

The entire hacking affair barely registered on my radar until I saw a tweet from a political scientist I follow. He links to his article on Time's Battleland blog. In it he says that according to the recent Pentago report on cyber warfare, this act would be counted as an act of war should it impact a significant portion of national security. Of course this was back when the reports were just that Gmail had been hacked, not that persons involved at the White House were among those impacted.

The scientist is named Thomas P.M. Barnett. I've been reading some of his work and integrating it into my research, he shows a brilliant methodology of analysis, though is short on some things, but no researcher is perfect. He worked inside the Navy's long-term planning group back at the turnover of the Cold War and had ideas that were definitely rubbing against the grain of the status quo. He's not one to say things lightly, and doesn't just fire from the hip. When he talks there is some thought put into it.

According to new Pentagon cyber strategy, state-of-war conditions now exist between the US and China

Thankfully there are protocol as far as what White House personnel are supposed to talk about on "public" networks. What we need to be scared of is if instances like the recent Lockheed-Martin hack are linked to China.

just logged into gmail a bit ago and found out mine was also hacked by someone in china on may 30, i just changed my password. not sure why they would hack my mail, as i am essentially a nobody.. as in i don't have any kind of official job or do any work for the gov't, but none the less i feel its a bit strange. i took some screen caps also, and i have the hacker's ip address, i'm curious to hear anyone's thoughts on this

reply to post by emptyOmind


How did you know it was hacked?

What does that look like?

reply to post by makeitso


it shows up at the top of your inbox in red that your account was recently accessed from x location and shows the ip address if available. in my case it said China, then gives you an option where you can view your settings, and also view your recent log in details. i checked the log in details and saw that all my log ins came from my current location except for one that came from China on may 30.

here's a picture of what it looks like, its a little small at the top of the blog but you can click it to see it normal sized:

gawker.com...