Who Hacked America?

In spite of the Mueller Report delivering nothing on “Russia, Russia, Russia!” there is still hysteria about Russian interference in the American electoral process. The puerile nature of this apparent interference was discussed here last month, but leaving aside the Internet Research Agency and assorted fake Facebook advertisements placed by sockpuppet accounts, what is going on in the cyberworld? Who else is playing silly, expensive or even dangerous games? Here are a few suggestions in no particular order:

Scotsman Gary McKinnon hacked into 97 US military and NASA computers over a thirteen month period in 2001–2002. He said he was looking for evidence of UFOs and other fringe subjects. His was said to have been the biggest military hack of all time — one man.

In October 2012, the South Carolina Department Of Revenue was hacked; this affected over three and a half million accounts.

In August 2013, hackers targeted Yahoo. Although based in the US, this Internet giant has branches worldwide. According to a report by National Public Radio four years later, it was likely that every Yahoo! account in existence at the time had been hacked.

Also in 2013, the social network site Tumblr was hacked, which led to the compromise of over 65 million passwords.

In May 2014, eBay was hacked, and 145 million users had their data compromised.

Navinder Singh Sarao was said to have helped trigger a multibillion dollar Wall Street crash. He was living with his parents in Hounslow, West London at the time of his arrest in April 2015. Although not a hacker, he made (and apparently lost) millions by manipulating markets with a sophisticated computer program of his own design. Last year, someone hacked the Pentagon compromising the personal information of over thirty thousand staff. Has Rachel Maddow even mentioned this?

Hillary Clinton aide John Podesta’s personal Gmail account was hacked, and there is no suggestion this was masterminded by Vladimir Putin. Clinton was herself hacked, but not by Russia, by China or some agency of the Chinese Government. This was announced to the world by Congressman Louis Gohmert. The entity concerned managed to blind copy her e-mails to another address.

How the brilliant cartoonist Clay Jones sees the hacking controversy.

Finally, way back in March 1995, a Russian by the name of Vladimir Levin rather than Vladimir Putin was arrested at Stansted Airport on suspicion of hacking into Citibank and stealing money — a massive financial fraud. He was eventually extradited to the United States where after a plea bargain he was sentenced to three years behind bars and ordered to pay restitution.

It would seem then that over the past quarter century, American companies and Government institutions have suffered far more damaging attacks than those supposedly inflicted on the country by the Kremlin, yet the hacks continue. This tends to indicate that rather than scapegoat the new Russia, the American authorities should pay more attention to improving their own security. Using AVG might be a good start!

[The above article was first published on Medium, June 1, 2019.]