White House Officials Tricked By Email Prankster (cnn.com)

Jake Tapper, reporting for CNN: A self-described "email prankster" in the UK fooled a number of White House officials into thinking he was other officials, including an episode where he convinced the White House official tasked with cyber security that he was Jared Kushner and received that official's private email address unsolicited. "Tom, we are arranging a bit of a soiree towards the end of August," the fake Jared Kushner on an Outlook account wrote to the official White House email account of Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert. "It would be great if you could make it, I promise food of at least comparible (sic) quality to that which we ate in Iraq. Should be a great evening." Bossert wrote back: "Thanks, Jared. With a promise like that, I can't refuse. Also, if you ever need it, my personal email is" (redacted). Bossert did not respond to CNN's request for comment; the email prankster said he was surprised Bossert responded given his expertise. The emails were shared with CNN by the email prankster. White House officials acknowledged the incidents and said they were taking the matter seriously. "We take all cyber related issues very seriously and are looking into these incidents further," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told CNN.

Comments

Not surprised though t it could have been worse...

[bogaboga]

"Thanks, Jared. With a promise like that, I can't refuse. Also, if you ever need it, my personal email is" (redacted).

A "food" promise will work most of the time.

Now, just suppose it were something to do with [propositioning] the fairer sex! Now, that would have been a scandal big time.

My take: Those folks are lucky, for now.

Let's be perfectly clear - it's a huge problem.

[gosand]

"So we had to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is a huge problem. I have a son—he’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers. It’s unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe, it's hardly doable. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing. But that’s true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester. And certainly cyber is one of them."

Re:Shock

[hey!]

Yes, I was surprised that the prankster thought Bossert had "expertise". He's a lawyer.

Now a lot of lawyers are very smart, and the best are information sponges who do manage to acquire impressive depth of knowledge in fields outside the law. But Bossert's only security experience was working as Deputy Homeland Security Advisor under Bush, a position he was utterly unqualified for; as for experience he picked up in that position, this was a period when the department was new and notorious for security theater and expensive boondoggles. Oh, yes he did serve as Director of Infrastructure Protection under Bush as well, during a period where nothing significant was accomplished.

I wouldn't be the least surprised if he got suckered by a phishing campaign.