Iran-Linked Hackers Breach FBI Director's Personal Email (reuters.com) 82
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Iran-linked hackers have broken into FBI Director Kash Patel's personal email inbox, publishing photographs of the director and other documents to the internet, the hackers and the bureau said on Friday. On their website, the hacker group Handala Hack Team said Patel "will now find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims." The hackers published a series of personal photographs of Patel sniffing and smoking cigars, riding in an antique convertible, and making a face while taking a picture of himself in the mirror with a large bottle of rum.
The FBI confirmed that Patel's emails had been targeted. In a statement, bureau spokesman Ben Williamson said, "we have taken all necessary steps to mitigate potential risks associated with this activity" and that the data involved was "historical in nature and involves no government information." Handala, which presents itself as a group of pro-Palestinian vigilante hackers, is considered by Western researchers to be one of several personas used by Iranian government cyberintelligence units. [...] Alongside the photographs of Patel, the hackers published a sample of more than 300 emails, which appear to show a mix of personal and work correspondence dating between 2010 and 2019.
The FBI confirmed that Patel's emails had been targeted. In a statement, bureau spokesman Ben Williamson said, "we have taken all necessary steps to mitigate potential risks associated with this activity" and that the data involved was "historical in nature and involves no government information." Handala, which presents itself as a group of pro-Palestinian vigilante hackers, is considered by Western researchers to be one of several personas used by Iranian government cyberintelligence units. [...] Alongside the photographs of Patel, the hackers published a sample of more than 300 emails, which appear to show a mix of personal and work correspondence dating between 2010 and 2019.
Based on what I've seen (Score:5, Insightful)
Last time Trump was President famously they kept him from having access to classified information as much as possible because he kept leaking it and so did everyone around him. Trump didn't like that so this time all the adults in the room are gone and it's all toddlers. It must really suck to be an American intelligence officer or asset right now. I mean we had people restraining the stupidity back in 2016 and they are all gone now and the last time the number of dead intelligence officers and assets shot through the roof. These days I suspect they have a life expectancy comparable to a drain fly.
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And you do know that your signature is a call for the complete genocide of the Jews, right? The slogan is a direct call to slaughter all the Jews between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. And you're joining in.
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You can't really expect much from someone that thinks Iran is some how morally above the USA. As bad as we are, when was the last time we murdered 1000s of protesters? We've murdered two, and even those two have grey areas to argue about whether it was even murder or justified homicide. We still suck, but 1000s vs 2. But hey, maybe all these Iranian apologist would feel more comfortable moving to Iran. They should go and find out, since they hate USA so much.
Re: Trust but verify (Score:1)
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Here's an Israeli using the term as it is usually understood so-as to remove the straw man you've neatly planted:
* https://youtube.com/watch?v=sbFXEbKmzHA&si=Vx10wDmtM-cv_XEd&t=140 [youtube.com]
It's a curious attempt to paint a slogan calling for freedom for Palestine as genocidal when they are actually victims of genocide committed by Israeli Attack Force.
It's really hard to convince the world you're a potential victim of the thing you
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That you fell for a lie changes nothing. It is a call to eradicate the Jews. The people who now call themselves "Palestinians" (which they didn't until the Egyptian terrorist Yasser Arafat came up with the term), left Israel rather than become citizens and then spent the next 70+ years trying to exterminate it and its people.
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Freedom for Palestine from the occupying force.
You've seen yourself an actual ItsNotReali (called for national service to be a soldier) using the phrase in the way most people mean it and understand it.
What's at issue is your refusal to fall for the truth. A truth being trampled on every day by the immoral yet recognised the world over.
Willful refusal to accept *reality* is not a useful trait in a world which runs on reality.
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Loving how you guys have such TDS you're actually rooting for the enemy. TWANLOC.
Like most Republicans: every accusation (of TDS, in this case) is a confession.
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The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
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I'm just happy my own country has not gotten involved in this. That would put me at risk. But as it stands it's not my war and that's fine with me. Just more global alienation caused by the toxic avenger who completely lacks diplomatic skills.
Handala Hack Team (Score:5, Funny)
Plz post more of those "deer in headlights" photos of Patel.
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Plz post more of those "deer in headlights" photos of Patel.
Is there any other kind? Every photo of him I've seen looks like the result of a poorly formed query processed by a janky LLM.
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Really? That's the only Funny on this rich target? And doesn't even strike me as especially funny. Maybe later?
But now I can't even remember if the real FBI director's passing got a mention on today's Slashdot.
Re: double standards (Score:5, Informative)
Re:double standards (Score:5, Informative)
NOTHING HAPPENS?
Seriously?
Were you AROUND in the late 1990s? The President got impeached after years of the cable news networks talking about LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE.
What is wrong with you?
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I think what he meant to say, is that if Lewinsky had been a decade younger (12 instead of 22), then nothing would have happened.
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I think what he meant to say, is that if Lewinsky had been a decade younger (12 instead of 22), then nothing would have happened.
There's zero chance the GOP would have let that slide.
But i wonder how many knew or suspected of Hastert's unsavory predilections when they were happening
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they're all 100% letting the Epstein saga slide.
Almost makes you want a Putin like strong man to sort them all out. right haruchai
If Putin had been around, he'd have been in the Epstein files, too. It's vanishingly-unlikely that any strongman like that wouldn't also be a sexual abuser. It's all part of the same disrespect for others.
Re:double standards (Score:4, Interesting)
> Were you AROUND in the late 1990s? The President got impeached after years of the cable news networks talking about LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE.
I remember those years. A scandal could last years. Now I wake up to a new scandal every other day. Public is so swamped with these political scandals that they do not know what to focus on. Every new scandal dilutes the previous one and starves it of attention. And some people give up trying to keep track. They are exhausted. And many others land in the disbelief zone.
The self dealing is so much that the sitting president putting his image on coins and signature on currency barely makes the news. If Obama had done any of these things, the mad screeching of conservatives would be out of control. He faced their wrath when he wore a tan suit.
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It's not so much about the scandals themselves, but more about people having their expectations betrays - hypocrisy in essence.
No one expects Trump to be noble or rightous, so there's no sense of betrayal when he behaves the way he does. By contrast, progressives/left-wing politicians usually do try to portray a position of virtue, so when they get caught ought people feel betrayed.
Here in Britain the Labour governemnt are a great example of this. The previous Conservative government had been as corrupt as
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Nothing should have happened (except between Hillary and Bill if Hillary wanted it.) It was never any of our businesses.
But multiple people got their names dragged through the mud on it. So what you're saying is just absurd. Years of breathless commentary in the news, a pointless impeachment, and over what? A affair between two consenting adults where the only victim was Hillary?
Meanwhile Trump isn't even facing an investigation for half the shit he's doing, and was able to be re-elected despite constitutio
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I know another guy that grabs women by the pussy.
Re:double standards (Score:5, Informative)
Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Any particular reason you brought it up?
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A jury even found him guilty. https://abcnews.com/US/jury-de... [abcnews.com]
This guy... (Score:5, Insightful)
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So, foreign names sound shady to you? There's a word for that, but it seems to have slipped my mind...
it hasn't slipped my mind how many Right-thinking people lost their ****ing minds over the name of Barack HUSSEIN Obama.
and they still haven't recovered
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I do not recognize his pronouns so I will use his given name Kashyap Pramod Patel.
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There have only been 8 others.
Name one even close.
I bet his password was something like KA$HRUL3Z.
"Iran, if you're listening..." (Score:3)
I so, so very look forward to pissing on several graves. I'll happily be arrested in Arlington Cemetery, so long as they let me shake first.
How is the lack of govt information relevant? (Score:4, Insightful)
Assuming it's remotely true (and there's good reason for thinking it isn't), it still means the FBI director was negligent in their choice of personal email provider, that the email provider had incompetent security, and that the government's failure to either have an Internet Czar (the post exists) or to enforce high standards on Internet services are a threat to the security of the nation (since we already know malware can cross airgaps through negligence, the DoD has been hit that way a few times). The FBI director could have copied unknown quantities of malware onto government machines through lax standards, any of which could have delivered classified information over the Internet (we know this because it has also happened to the DoD).
In short, the existence of the hack is a minor concern relative to every single implication that hack has.
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If the data is really that old, it sounds like they might've infiltrated a backup rather than the live account. Still a problem, but hopefully a little less so.
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Re:How is the lack of govt information relevant? (Score:4, Informative)
Assuming it's remotely true (and there's good reason for thinking it isn't), it
The FBI confirmed it. Unless you're saying you can't trust the officials appointed by this administration?
Re:How is the lack of govt information relevant? (Score:5, Funny)
Republicans:
Button 1: Can't Trust the FBI.
Button 2: Trust everyone in this administration.
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Loyalty over competence.
But I was hoping to see more Funny for the target-rich story.
The guy in charge of the FBI is Kash Patel (Score:3, Insightful)
If you look at the credentials of the people in charge of the country right now it's a who's who of has been bloggers and TV show hosts. This was on purpose. The voters gave us Trump and Trump wanted yes men.
Privately every single person in Trump's administration is terrified he's not going to get a third term because if he doesn't then they don't have any of that sweet sweet supreme Cou
Re:How is the lack of govt information relevant? (Score:4, Insightful)
All people I know who got their email hacked were on outlook. None on gmail nor any other provider. I am really curious about if he was on outlook or not. I suspect some hacked outlook email accounts have nothing to do with the user being negligent and has to do with microsoft cloud being full of security holes.
I keep on blocking full /16 microsoft cloud networks from accessing my services while I only block single IPs from amazon and google cloud and get orders of magnitude less bad request from them then Microsoft. This leads me to suspect some vm instances running on microsoft cloud were hacked directly because of security holes in microsoft cloud itself, not because the owners of the vm instances were negligent.
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Or much more likely, that the individual in question was reusing credentials across numerous sites. The email account was probably just fine but when your credentials get leaked elsewhere, this is what happens. Obviously no MFA setup either.
Or possibly, he used a weak password that wasn't that hard to brute force. I doubt this person is a computer security professional or even a hobbyist. The 99% just doesn't understand basic computer security.
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"All people I know who got their email hacked were on outlook. None on gmail nor any other provider."
If you are not limiting to people you *personally* know, there was a pretty famous non-outlook case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
If you *are* limiting to people you personally know, I would suggest you may not have a representative sample.
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That's why I said "I suspect" meaning it *might* be. I just shared what I have observed.
The type of attacks I am talking about are similar to this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The attackers exploited software or credentials from at least three U.S. firms: Microsoft, SolarWinds, and VMware
You posted a link referencing a spear-phishing attack which has very little to do with where the email account was hosted and the entity providing the email service.
Now they know what he ordered from Amazon! (Score:2)
Probably just an easy password (Score:2)
Was it, "12345" like my luggage?
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Probably maga2020! Like cheeto's previous twitter password. https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
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You don't think it's a bit funny the director of the FBI had his personal email hacked? It's more innocent than dropping a bomb on an elementary school at least.
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I'm laughing at one the highest ranking law enforcement officers in the USA getting his personal email hacked. Who is rooting for Iran?
Nothing to see here (Score:2)
Pathetic Hackers (Score:2)
The content of this "scandalous" data dump -- 10 years of emails -- is as exciting as my grand father's public Facebook page.
Were I a hacker, I'd be embarrassed to release this.