The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Secret Service have launched an investigation into the alleged hacking of financial information relating to the biggest names in American politics, Hollywood and music world.
The list of names posted what appears to be a Russian website includes US First lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller. “We will confirm Secret Service is investigating the matter,” spokesman Brian leahy told Politico. “We cannot comment further as it is an ongoing investigation.”
News of the suspected hacking of personal information such as credit reports, home addresses and telephone numbers came on the eve of US intelligence chief James Clapper’s annual threat assessment report to the Congress in which he identified cyber attacks as an escalating threat to America.
President Barack Obama, who gave an interview to ABC News, declined to confirm if his wife’s credit records had been hacked, but confirmed the ongoing investigations and commented that online hacking was “a big problem”. “We should not be surprised that if you’ve got hackers who want to dig in and devote a lot of resources, that they can access peoples’ private information,” Obama said, adding: “Again, not sure how accurate but ... you’ve got web sites out there that tell people’s credit card info. That’s how sophisticated they are.”
The web site in question had posted what was claimed by the hackers to be the Social Security numbers, credit reports, former addresses and personal banking information of top US political personalities and celebrities from the entertainment industry.
Officials said the FBI and Secret Service were trying to determine how much of the information was authentic and how it might have been compromised. Beyonce, Jay Z, Mel Gibson, Britney Spears, Hulk Hogan, Kim Kardashian, Ashton Kutcher, Paris Hilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Donald Trump were reported to be among those whose information had allegedly been hacked, but no confirmation was forthcoming on how authentic the claim was.