By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
With the most modern of technology comes the most modern of crimes.
Two men — one from Arkansas and another from California — were arrested Tuesday and charged in Newark, N.J. with hacking into the AT&T’s servers and stealing emails and personal info of about 120,000 Apple iPad users including such notables as Diane Sawyer, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Harvey Weinstein and Rahm Emanuel.
The thievery happened between June 5 and June 9, authorities said.
Andrew Auernheimer, 25, of Fayetteville, Ark., and Daniel Spitler, 26, of San Francisco were arrested by the FBI and charged with an alleged conspiracy to hack AT&T’s servers and for possession of personal subscriber information obtained from the servers.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that immediately after the Immediately following the theft, the hackers provided the stolen e-mail addresses and ICC-IDs (Circuit Card Identifiers) to the website Gawker, which published the stolen information in redacted form.
The article said the breach “exposed the most exclusive email list on the planet,”and indicated that iPad users were vulnerable to spam marketing and malicious hacking, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
- Mayor Bloomberg
U.S. Attorney Fishman stated: “Hacking is not a competitive sport, and security breaches are not a game,” said Newark U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman.
“Companies that are hacked can suffer significant losses, and their customers made vulnerable to other crimes, privacy violations, and unwanted contact.” Computer intrusions and the spread of malicious code are a threat to national security, corporate security, and personal security.”
