Why to not use yahoo for government email.
Looks like Gov Palin’s personal yahoo email account was hacked. Now, this would be a big deal no matter the situation. However, as Palin and her staff frequently used their personal email accounts for day-to-day government related business (to avoid the accountability associated with using their actual state-provided emails), it adds a whole new facet to this crime. Screenshots and several captures providing verification of the event have been posted to WikiLeaks.
It appears that the hacker used Yahoo’s relatively insecure “identity verification” process in case of lost passwords to get the password changed and access the account.
I was appalled when i read that Palin and her staff were using yahoo and other personal accounts for government business. This a picture perfect example of why that is a BAD idea. The security requirements of an email system tailored for the average consumer are by nature less restrictive than one for a corporate or government entity.
Category: Government
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The thing is, you needed to have a secondary address for that to have worked. Whoever’s claiming to be the awesome haxzor skipped that part, from what I understand. So either that’s NOT how it was done or there’s more to the story than that (ie – covering their ass because it wasn’t “hacking” so much as “looking”).
They got on because if you “Forget” you PW on yahoo, all you need is some easy to come by info and a security question. In this case it was asking where she met her husband. The hacker figured that out pretty easily
I looked at the web sote you cite.. I do not see any government business there. Emailing people from work to complain about the media isn’t government work.
Unless I missed it (and I could have) where is there evidence of Government work in those emails?
Among the headers listed at the bottom of the page are some that certainly look to be work related.
There have been articles about her office’s use of personal email for a little while, here’s a recent one i linked to a prior post -
Governors two e-mail accounts questioned
Way to spin your side out of the issue, Jeremy. The story here, since you’re trying so hard to forget, is that left wing, Obama supporting criminals hacked into Palin’s email, in violation of federal law.
It’s one more in a long line of indicators that the Left is running scared, and they will do anything — legal or otherwise — to save Obama’s campaign.
Obama supporting? Love to know where you got that. We don’t even know if it was done from the US. Like you, i hope they catch the person who did it.
In my experience, most script kiddies are generally apolitical. Considering the simplicity involved in getting access to her account, my guess is it was some 15 year old who said – “wow, this famous person uses yahoo? hey, i’m a 733t h4xx0r, watch this! pwned.” The forum the hack was posted to is mainly known for going after Scientology.
WikiLeaks for their part is all about government and corporate whistleblowing, and with the controversy swirling around Gov Palin’s staff use of personal emails, its a natural place for the stuff to end up.
As for my “spin”, I’m sure anyone involved in computer security was shaking their head when the whole govt use of personal yahoo emails story broke, regardless of their political stripe.