Teenager hacks CIA, FBI and US DOJ email accounts

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-england-leicestershire-42751173
A teenager "put lives at risk" when he posted thousands of US security agents' details online, a court has heard.

Kane Gamble, 18, targeted CIA, FBI and US Department of Justice databases from his bedroom in Leicestershire.

A sentencing hearing at the Old Bailey was told Gamble, who has admitted a number of charges, bragged of accessing the email and phones of senior figures.

His defence said he was on the autistic spectrum and was motivated by politics, not money.

Between June 2015 and February 2016, when aged 15 and 16, Gamble tricked call centre and helpline staff into revealing broadband and cable passwords from his bedroom on a housing estate in Coalville.

Using that information he targeted high-profile figures such as the then CIA Director John Brennan and Deputy Director of the FBI Mark Giuliano.

He then sent emails from agents' accounts and accessed sensitive military information.

Gamble even managed to use the TV in the house of then US Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson to post the message "I own you".

He took over the home phones of two senior security officials and diverted calls to the Free Palestine Movement.

While using an anonymous Twitter account he tried to justify his actions - in conversations with journalists - by saying he was angry about "corrupt and cold-blooded" US action in the Middle East.

Prosecutor John Lloyd-Jones QC said Gamble told others he knew he was "putting lives at risk" by releasing names of security staff but compared that to the US "killing innocent civilians".

His defence said Gamble was technically gifted but emotionally immature and on the autistic spectrum.

Also, they said, at no point did he attempt to profit from his actions.

excerpts from telegraph article:

The teenager persuaded call handlers at an internet giant that he was John Brennan, the then director of the CIA, to gain access to his computers and an FBI helpdesk that he was Mark Giuliano, then the agency’s Deputy Director, to re-gain access to an intelligence database.

He also targeted the US Secretary of Homeland Security and Barack Obama's Director of National Intelligence from his semi-detached council house in Coalville.

Gamble taunted his victims online, released personal information, bombarded them with calls and messages, downloaded pornography onto their computers and took control of their iPads and TV screens, a court heard.
...
Gamble, who has pleaded guilty to ten offences under the computer misuse act, first targeted Mr Brennan and gained access to his Verizon internet account by pretending first to be employee of the company and then Mr Brennan himself, building up an increasingly detailed picture.

At first he was denied access to his computers as he could not name Mr Brennan’s first pet, but on later calls the handler changed the pin and security questions.

He used similar methods to access Mr Brennan’s AOL account and eventually Gamble was able to access his emails, contacts, his iCloud storage account and his wife’s iPad remotely.
...
Around October 2015, when Gamble turned 16, gained access to Mr Giuliano’s home accounts by pretending to be the FBI boss and using the information gained he accessed the FBI’s Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal (Leap).
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This included criminal intelligence and details of police officers and government employees, and Gamble boasted: “This has to be the biggest hack, I have access to all the details the Feds use for background checks.”

The FBI had realised that their system was breached and the password was changed, but at one point Gamble managed to change it and regain access by pretending to be Mr Giuliano in a call to the helpdesk.