Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

A Typo Led To Podesta's Email Hack, Says Report (thehill.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the auto-correct dept.

tomhath quotes a report from The Hill: Last March, Podesta received an email purportedly from Google saying hackers had tried to infiltrate his Gmail account. When an aide emailed the campaign's IT staff to ask if the notice was real, Clinton campaign aide Charles Delavan replied that it was "a legitimate email" and that Podesta should "change his password immediately." Instead of telling the aide that the email was a threat and that a good response would be to change his password directly through Google's website, he had inadvertently told the aide to click on the fraudulent email and give the attackers access to the account. Delavan told The New York Times he had intended to type "illegitimate," a typo he still has not forgiven himself for making. The email was a phishing scam that ultimately revealed Podesta's password to hackers. Soon after, WikiLeaks began releasing 10 years of his emails.

9 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. Article disagreement by suso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Clinton campaign aide Charles Delavan replied that it was "a legitimate email"............he had intended to type "illegitimate,"

    If that's true, shouldn't they have used "an" instead of "a". These are college graduates after all, right?

    1. Re:Article disagreement by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Clinton campaign aide Charles Delavan replied that it was "a legitimate email"............he had intended to type "illegitimate,"

      If that's true, shouldn't they have used "an" instead of "a". These are college graduates after all, right?

      Depends on the layer of his mind where the mistake was made. If it is above the abstraction layer of the grammar processing for emitting the typo, he would emit a grammatical but erroneous-in-multiple-words statement.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    2. Re:Article disagreement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Legitimate or not, the huge thing that everyone should know is [b]never[/b] to use an email to log into an account.

    3. Re:Article disagreement by whoever57 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What about the second part, where he told him to change his password? There isn't a single letter typo that can reverse the meaning, plus, if there is no action, then "immediately" is completely redundant.

      No, this is a poor cover story from someone who fucked up massively.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    4. Re:Article disagreement by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is just CYA bullshit designed to make them look less incompetent.

      I am confused. Up till now, I thought they were the victims of sophisticated Russian ex-KGB agents using quantum cryptanalysis. But it turns out they fell for a common phishing scam written by some script kiddie. How does this make them look less incompetent?

    5. Re:Article disagreement by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course the other big woosh in this is the excuse. We have all made mistakes but I never remember adding extras letters and reversing the definition. Of course normal response in IT circles when phishing email is questioned, is fuck no, do not touch it, I will be right there to check it, this because phishing attacks are normally picked up by filters and any suspect ones that get through become an immediate concern because they represent a greater threat. Of course if you set up your insecure email server in a bathroom with intend to destroy all records if you do not have time to edit out the ones you do not want, meh who gives a fuck, arrogant criminals in government who can completely distort the application of justice as far as their criminally corrupt arse is concerned, well, security that a problems for the plebs. You just know some extremely bad file attachments will leaked out and that's what all the real fuss is about, you could imagine splashed all over Russian media and they after some time censored versions on grudgingly put on western media. When they start to arrogantly ignoring network security, they always go nuts become idiots and starting pushing the limits, no matter where they work government or private, right up until they are brought crashing down to earth. Nobody tolerates fuck ups in the end and they readily toss them out as sacrifices to the appearance of justice.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  2. Idiot by byteherder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You mean he didn't check the url where he was giving his new password, he didn't log into Google directly, he didn't to make sure that the email was really sent from someone at Google.
    He blindly clicked on a link in an email and gave up his password.

    And this proves that Russia hacked is account.

    All this proves is that John Podesta is an idiot.

  3. and yet... by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...we continue to talk about the HACK and who did it, not what the emails showed.

    --
    -Styopa
  4. These people mocked McCain over computers... by mi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Eight years ago these people mocked McCain as "out of touch" for his reluctance to use a computer...

    Turns out, they need two layers of aides themselves to be able to tell an e-mail scam... Hypocrite scum.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.