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How the Russians hacked Obama's email

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Google Oneindia News

The hackers are everywhere. The latest to face the wrath of the hackers is none other than President of the United States of America, Barack Obama.

The mails he had sent and received out of his extremely secure blackberry was read by the Russian hackers investigations in the United States of America have revealed. [Obama proposes USD 14 billion to boost cyber security]

obama

Preliminary investigations have shown that it was some hackers from Russia who had read the mails that were sent and received by Obama.

However the modus operandi undertaken by the Russian hackers was an interesting one- they did not hack into the encrypted blackberry used by Obama.

How the Russian hackers got into Obama's email?

The blackberry which is used by Obama is a highly encrypted one. In fact the US boasts an extreme lot about the security of the blackberry. The hackers from Russia however were unable to hack into the blackberry.

They instead hacked into the mails of the people inside the White House with whom Obama is in regular touch on mail. From these mails they opened up the folders and read the mails which Obama had sent to them, investigations also found.

Investigators in the US say that the incident occurred last year. There was no attempt made to hack into Obama's mails directly. Instead the hackers took the other route and hacked mail accounts to which the President had sent out mails.

How much information has been compromised

The investigators say that the information that has leaked was un-classified. The mails that were hacked were routine in nature. They contained schedules and also exchanges with diplomats and ambassadors which is routine in nature.

Classified information is never shared on mail by the President. The only mails he either sends or receives are routine information. They could also be related to press briefing, investigations have also found.

An embarrassment, many would say

While the investigators into the incident say that there is no important information that has been hacked into or compromised, it is still an embarrassment. The hack appears to be sophisticated in nature and the hackers have found an alternate method to dig out information.

The US never suspected that the hackers could take the alternate route to read into the mails sent by the President of the United States of America. Whatever the case may be, it is still a case where the President's communications have been hit by hackers.

Who are these hackers?

Russia like China has been notorious for hacking into emails of other nations. There has been an outrage both in Russia and China against the US especially after the Edward Snowden incident in which it was revealed that the NSA had listened into conversations of several persons including world leaders.

While China has made many efforts to hack into the US systems, the Russians have been particularly nosey after relations with the US hit an all time low over the Ukraine issue.

Russia snooping into the President's mails is something that has the US worried no end and they feel that many such attempts would be made like to hack into the Pentagon too. It is reminiscent of the cold war the experts would say.

What has the US more worried is that that the hackers have shown that they can do such things over and over again. One may recollect the 2008 campaign of Obama which was hit by hackers from China. This led to the US issuing Obama with a special smartphone.

The mails from this smartphone designed for the president had extremely restricted mail access. This is what has the investigators even more worried as the hackers have found an alternate way to snoop into what the president is mailing.

The mailing system was in fact done away with in the White House for sometime. When George Bush was the President he had given up on mailing.

However, the vulnerability to hacking came to the forefront when his sister's mails were hacked. The White House has been prone to hacking by the Chinese and the Russians.

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