Men alleged to have hacked CIA director’s email account arrested

U.S. authorities have arrested two North Carolina men accused of hacking into the private email accounts of high-ranking U.S. intelligence officials.

Andrew Otto Boggs, aka “INCURSIO,” 22, of North Wilkesboro, N.C. and Justin Gray Liverman, aka “D3F4ULT,” 24, of Morehead City, N.C. were both arrested Thursday morning and will be extradited next week to the Eastern District of Virginia, where federal prosecutors have spent months building a case against a group that calls itself Crackas With Attitude.

The hacking collective has claimed to have gained access to the private email accounts of CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

A 16-year-old British teenager suspected of being involved in the group was arrested in February.

The group has been outspoken about its cyber mischief, providing reporters with evidence that members successfully broke into the personal files of top U.S. intelligence officials.

The group is also thought to have leaked the names and work email addresses and phone numbers of thousands of Homeland Security and FBI employees. In that case, none of the email addresses and numbers was personal, but they still could be of use to overseas intelligence agencies.

Last year, one hacker affiliated with the group, going by the nickname “Cracka,” told the New York Post he was motivated by “opposition to U.S. foreign policy and support to Palestine.”

He said he had obtained the information through a “social engineering” ploy in which he posed as a Verizon technician and tricked the company’s tech-support unit into revealing Brennan’s account number, password and other details. He said he then used that information to pose as Brennan in a call to AOL in which he requested a reset of the CIA chief’s online password.

Early this year,”Cracka” told the magazine Motherboard that he had accessed a series of accounts linked to Clapper, including his home telephone and Internet, his personal email and his wife’s Yahoo email account. The person claimed to have changed the settings on Clapper’s home phone number, provided by Verizon FIOS, so that every call would be forwarded to the Free Palestine Movement.