Stolen Yahoo Data Includes Government Employee Information
- FBI, CIA, NSA, White House workers among hacking victims
- Former intelligence officers say leak could aid foreign spies
More than 150,000 U.S. government and military employees are among the victims of Yahoo! Inc.’s newly disclosed data breach, and their names, passwords, telephone numbers, security questions, birth dates, and backup e-mail addresses are now in the hands of cybercriminals. It’s a leak that could allow foreign intelligence services to identify employees and hack their personal and work accounts, posing a threat to national security. These employees had given their official government accounts to Yahoo in case they were ever locked out of their e-mail.
The government accounts belong to current and former White House staff, U.S. congressmen and their aides, FBI agents, officials at the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and each branch of the U.S. military. The list includes an FBI division chief and multiple special agents working around the U.S.; current and former diplomats in Pakistan, Syria and South Africa; a network administrator at NSA’s Fort Meade headquarters; the chief of an Air Force intelligence group; and a human resources manager for the CIA.