On July 22, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
The emails were exchanged from January 2015 through May 2016.
These clearly reveal a bias for Hillary Clinton and against her lone challenger, Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.
One email revealed that Brad Marshall, the chief financial officer of the DNC, suggested that Sanders, who is Jewish, could be portrayed as an atheist.
Sanders’ supporters have long charged that the DNC and its chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, were plotting to undercut his campaign. Now thousands of them are expected to descend on the Democratic convention as furious protesters.
The leak could not have come at a worse time for Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady, U.S. Senator from New York and Secretary of State under President Barack Obama.
About to receive the Democratic nomination for President, she finds herself charged with undermining the electoral process.
Wasserman-Schultz has proven the first casualty of the leak, resigning from her position as chair of the DNC and saying she would not open the Democratic convention as previously scheduled.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
As for Clinton: Her campaign manager, Bobby Mook, blamed the Russians for the leak. Their alleged motive: To help Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Cyber-security experts believe the hackers originated from Russia–and that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have authorized it.
His alleged motive: Trump has repeatedly attacked United States’ membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
He believes the United States is paying an unfairly large portion of the monies needed to maintain this alliance–and he wants other members to contribute far more. Otherwise, if he is elected President, they would be on their own if attacked by Russia.
Trump took to twitter to offer his take on the release: “How much BAD JUDGEMENT was on display by the people in DNC in writing those really dumb e-mails, using even religion, against Bernie!”
Bernie Sanders
Which brings up the obvious question: Why was such sensitive information entrusted to computers that could be hacked?
This is not the first time a major corporation or government agency has fallen prey to hackers.
Name-brand companies, trusted by millions, have been hit with massive data breaches that compromised their customers’ and/or employees’ most sensitive financial and personal information.
Among those companies and agencies:
- Target
- Kmart
- Home Depot
- JPMorgan/Chase
- Staples
- Dairy Queen
- Anthem, Inc.
- Sony Pictures
- The U.S. State Department
- The Pentagon
- The Office of Personnel Management
Perhaps the most notorious target so far hacked is Ashley Madison, the website for cheating wives and husbands. Launched in 2001, its catchy slogan is: “Life is short. Have an affair.”
On July 15, 2015, its more than 37 million members learned that highly embarrassing secrets they had entrusted to Ashley Madison had been compromised.
This included their sexual fantasies, matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails.
A website offering cheating services to those wealthy enough to afford high-priced fees is an obvious target for hackers. After all, its database is a blackmailer’s dream-come-true.
And the same is true for computers of one of the two major political parties of the United States.
Among the secrets unearthed in the WikiLeaks document-dump: Plans by Democratic party officials to reward large donors and prominent fundraisers with lucrative appointments to federal boards and commissions.
Most of the donors listed gave to Clinton’s campaign. None gave to Sanders.
According to Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group:
“The disclosed DNC emails sure look like the potential Clinton Administration has intertwined the appointments to federal government boards and commissions with the political and fund raising operations of the Democratic Party. That is unethical, if not illegal.”
Centuries before the invention of computers–and the machinery needed to hack into them–Niccolo Machiavelli offered cautionary advice to those thinking of entering into a conspiracy. He did so in his masterwork on politics, The Discourses.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Unlike his better-known work, The Prince, which deals with how to secure power, The Discourses lays out rules for preserving liberty within a republic.
In Book Three, Chapter Six (“Of Conspiracies”) he writes:
“I have heard many wise men say that you may talk freely with any one man about everything, for unless you have committed yourself in writing, the ‘Yes’ of one man is worth as much as the ‘No’ of another.
“And therefore one should guard most carefully against writing, as against a dangerous rock, for nothing will convict you quicker than your own handwriting.”
In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul of France, ordered the execution of the popular Louis Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Enghien, claiming that he had aided Britain and plotted against France.
The aristocracy of Europe, still recalling the slaughters of the French Revolution, was shocked.
Asked for his opinion on the execution, Napoleon’s chief of police, Joseph Fouche, said: “It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder.”
This may prove to be history’s verdict on the storing of so many incriminating computer files by the DNC.
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DATA SECURITY BREACHES: “WE DON’T CARE–WE DON’T HAVE TO”
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 14, 2017 at 1:15 amComedian Lily Tomlin rose to fame on the 1960s comedy hit, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, as Ernestine, the rude, sarcastic switchboard operator for Ma Bell.
She would tap into customers’ calls, interrupt them, make snide remarks about their personal lives. And her victims included celebrities as much as run-of-the-mill customers.
Lily Tomlin as Ernestine
She introduced herself as working for “the phone company, serving everyone from presidents and kings to the scum of the earth.”
But perhaps the line for which her character is best remembered was: “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.”
Watching Ernestine on Laugh-In was a blast for millions of TV viewers. But facing such corporate arrogance in real-life is no laughing matter.
Clearly, too many companies take the same attitude as Ernestine: “We don’t care. We don’t have to.”
This is especially true for companies that are supposed to safeguard their customers’ most sensitive information—such as their credit card numbers, addresses, emails and phone numbers.
An October 22, 2014 “commentary” published in Forbes magazine raised the highly disturbing question: “Cybersecurity: Does Corporate America Really Care?”
And the answer is clearly: No.
Its author is John Hering, co-founder and executive director of Lookout, which bills itself as “the world leader in mobile security for consumers and enterprises alike.”
Click here: Cybersecurity: Does corporate America really care?
October, 2014 proved a bad month for credit card-using customers of Kmart, Staples and Dairy Queen.
All these corporations reported data breeches involving the theft of credit card numbers of countless numbers of customers.
Earlier breaches had hit Target, Home Depot and JPMorgan/Chase.
And on February 5, 2015, health insurance giant Anthem Inc. announced that hackers had breached its computer system and accessed the medical records of tens of millions of its customers and employees.
Anthem, the nation’s second-largest health insurer, said the infiltrated database held records on up to 80 million people.
Among the customers’ information accessed:
Some of the customer data may also include details on their income.
Click here: Anthem hack exposes data on 80 million; experts warn of identity theft – LA Times
Bad as that news was, worse was to come.
A February 5 story by the Wall Street Journal revealed that Anthem stored the Social Security numbers of 80 million customers without encrypting them.
The company believes that hackers used a stolen employee password to access the database
Anthem’s alleged reason for refusing to encrypt such sensitive data: Doing so would have made it harder for the company’s employees to track health care trends or share data with state and Federal health providers.
Anthem spokeswoman Kristin Binns blamed the data breach on employers and government agencies who “require us to maintain a member’s Social Security number in our systems so that their systems can uniquely identify their members.”
She said that Anthem encrypts personal data when it moves in or out of its database–but not where it is stored.
This is a commonplace practice in the healthcare industry.
The FBI launched an investigation into the hack.
According to an anonymous source, the hackers used malware that has been used almost exclusively by Chinese cyberspies.
Naturally, China has denied any wrongdoing. With a completely straight face, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said:
“We maintain a cooperative, open and secure cyberspace, and we hope that countries around the world will make concerted efforts to that end.”
He also said that the charge that the hackers were Chinese was “groundless.”
Click here: Health Insurer Anthem Didn’t Encrypt Stolen Data – WSJ
Meanwhile, John Hering’s complaints remain as valid today as they did last October.
“One thing is clear,” writes Hering. “CEOs need to put security on their strategic agendas alongside revenue growth and other issues given priority in boardrooms.”
Hering warns that “CEOs don’t seem to be making security a priority.” And he offers several reasons for this:
“There’s a short-term mindset and denial of convenience in board rooms,” writes Hering.
“Top executives don’t realize their systems are vulnerable and don’t understand the risks. Sales figures and new products are top of mind; shoring up IT systems aren’t.”
There are three ways corporations can be forced to start behaving responsibly on this issue.
Only then will the CEO mindset of “We don’t care, we don’t have to” be replaced with: “We care, because we’ll lose our money and/or freedom if we don’t.”
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