The hacker claims he got his hands on the documents by using social engineering. He called the US telephone, TV and internet service provider Verizon and tricked its workers by impersonating an employee. The personal information that he received helped him later dupe AOL and Comcast into giving him access to his target’s accounts.
"He was able to do this multiple times. That was the most shocking thing," Castro said, "This attack didn’t work just once, but after Brannon regained control of his AOL account, hackers then said they were able to do it three more times."
"It is clear that in this case, this was a personal attack against an individual [rather than] just a more general [blow at] government surveillance." Castro insisted.
"The way that the information is being released, it shows that this was intended by the attacker as a way to personally embarrass this individual."
The data published on WikiLeaks included the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's 2008 report. The documents also included a lot of personal details, such as the Social Security numbers, phone numbers and personal information of over a dozen top intelligence officials, as well as a letter about the use of "harsh interrogation techniques" on terrorism suspects.
