Friday, June 14, 2013

CBS Confirms Reporter Sharyl Attkisson's Computers Were Hacked Multiple Times

 Sharyl Attkisson

CBS News has confirmed that there were highly sophisticated, multiple hacking attacks on reporter Sharyl Attkisson's home and work computers.

CBS News spokeswoman Sonya McNair said that a cybersecurity firm hired by CBS News "has determined through forensic analysis" that "Attkisson's computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions in late 2012."

"Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson's accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data. This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion. CBS News is taking steps to identify the responsible party and their method of access."


Late 2012..when Ms. Attkisson was practically the only mainstream news reporter not working for FOX that was covering the Benghazi debacle.

Attkisson first noticed the attacks, when she saw unusual activity,  such as dormant computers spontaneously “waking up” at odd hours. She also noticed  disruptions on her home phone line.

You'll also remember that Attkisson was also  the only non-FOX reporter covering th eFast and Furious scandal, which saw the Department of Justice using straw buyers purchase weapons and then allow them to walk the weapons across the border and sell them to the Mexican Drug Cartels.

In an interview Friday, Attkisson said  that she was “outraged” oveer the hacking attacks. 

“This wasn’t any ordinary malware of a phishing attempt,” that is, an effort to gain personal information, she said. “I assume someone wanted to see what I was working on.”

“The privacy and security of every American citizen in his own home, not to mention the work of a journalist, is sacrosanct. The idea that an unknown party could come into your home electronically is upsetting and disturbing. . . . People should be disturbed that a reporter would be spied on and intimidated this way. I do feel that this was an attempt to make me feel intimidated.”

I doubt there's much question about who was hacking her computers.Or why.

1 comment:

B.Poster said...

I agree. I think we know who was doing the hacking and why. What I do find amazing is how breathtakingly incompetent team Obama and his stooges at NSA, CIA, and elsewhere are about all of this.

I also think there is not much of a question now about whether Obama will be impeached. Essentially he will be impeached by the House and Senate. The only question now is when, how long the trial will take, how much time he's going to be spending in jail, who on his team will be spending time in jail with him, and how long they will all be there.

The fact that this is our first African American president will likely slow down the process of Mr. Obama's impeachment and ultimate removal from office but will not prevent it. Electing our first African American president was a major milestone in the history of the nation. It's to bad it's going to end in disgrace. The question at this point is not "if" but "when" Mr. Obama will be impeached and removed from office.

Complicating things further is the distraction that this will all entail. We need to be focusing on things like, 1.)how do we get our economy moving in the right direction, 2.)how do we preserve the dollar's role as world reserve currency, especially with our huge national debt, 3.)how do we deal with grave national security threats posed by a resurgent Russia and an up and coming China, and 4.)how do we deal with the threat posed by Islamic terrorists and the nations who support them.

While I'm NOT going to argue that Russia and China are more powerful than the US, I think it can be agreed that nations such as these who possess huge nuclear arsenals, extremely competent and ruthless leadership, as well as superb intellegence gathering abilities are a serious issue that we need to figure out how to deal with if our nation is going survive let alone prosper in the coming years.

While impeachment is likely necessary at this point, it's going to be extremely extremely distracting. Special care will need to be taken so that the issues mentioned above are not neglected.