Clapper hacked: US Intelligence director's personal e-mail and phone breached

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The same entity that claims to be behind a recent hack of CIA Director John Brennan's personal email now claims to be behind a breach of the accounts of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed to Motherboard that Clapper had been targeted, and that the case has been forwarded to law enforcement.

A group of hackers calling themselves "Crackas With Attitude" or CWA made headlines in October, hacking into CIA Director John Brennan's email account and apparently getting access to several online tools and portals used by US law enforcement agencies.The hackers' exploits prompted the FBI to issue an alert warning government officials of their attacks.

One of the group's hackers, who's known as "Cracka," contacted me on Monday, claiming to have broken into a series of accounts connected to Clapper, including his home telephone and internet, his personal email, and his wife's Yahoo email. While in control of Clapper's Verizon FiOS account, Cracka claimed to have changed the settings so that every call to his house number would get forwarded to the Free Palestine Movement. When they gained notoriety last year, Cracka and CWA claimed their actions were all in support of the Palestine cause.

"I'm pretty sure they don't even know they've been hacked," Cracka told me in an online chat.

But Brian Hale, a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, confirmed the hack to Motherboard on Tuesday.

"We're aware of the matter and we reported it to the appropriate authorities," Hale said, declining to answer any other questions on the record. (The FBI declined to comment.)

Cracka, or whoever is pretending to be him, taunted authorities on Twitter (the hacker used a new Twitter account, not the same one he used at the time of the Brennan hack.

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[Motherboard via Ars Technica reports]