We have been hearing about Hillary Clinton’s emails for months, maybe more. But how did someone of such high political status fall victim to hackers?
Clinton’s campaign chair, John Podesta, was sent an email warning that someone in the Ukraine had obtained his email credentials. This email looked to be an official email from Google. This email instructed Podesta to click on a link to reset his password to save himself from further trouble.
As an employee who is well-trained in matters of email security should do, Podesta forwarded this email on to the chief of staff, who forwarded it onto another, who responded, “This is a legitimate email. John needs to change his password immediately.”
The link (google.com-securitysettingpage) could look genuine, even to the trained eye. The hackers even set up an internet address that, again, looked like a Google page.
Five months later, hackers were able to download tens of thousands of emails from his account which were then posted to WikiLeaks.
