Crackas With Attitudeโ Hacker Gained Access To CIA Chiefโs Accounts
A British teenager who gained access to intel-operations in Afghanistan and Iran by posing as the CIA chief has pleaded guilty in a London court on Friday.
The accused, Kane Gamble, now 18, who was then aged 15 and 16 at the time of the offences targeted figures such as the then CIA chief John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, as well as senior FBI figures such as Mark Giuliano between June 2015 and February 2016, when he was arrested.
Gamble carried out his hacking operations from his bedroom in Coalville, central England, by mimicking his targets to gain access to highly classified documents concerning US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq Afghanistan includingย personal information,ย contacts lists,ย security details, and passwords.
โKane Gambleย gainedย accessย to the communicationsย accountsย of some very high-ranking US intelligence officials and government employees. He alsoย gainedย accessย to US law enforcement and intelligence agency network. He accessed some extremely sensitive accounts referring to, among other things, military operations and intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran,โ prosecutor Lloyd-Jones QC prosecutor John Lloyd-Jones told England’s Old Bailey central criminal court on Friday.
He then used the personal information toย abuse his victimsโ online, release personal information, and bombard them withย calls and messages, and even download pornography ontoย their computers while taking control ofย their iPads and TV screens.
Gamble is the founder of the Crackas With Attitude (CWA) group, who had reportedly claimed responsibility for the attacks. The CWA group always expressed its support to Palestine and the hacks were carried out as part of a campaign of harassment against top US officials due to its support to the Israeli politics.
Gamble wasย arrestedย in February 2016, and in October 2017,ย heย pleaded guiltyย to ten charges related to the attempted intrusions that took place between late 2015 and early 2016.
Other two members of the CWA group, Andrew Otto Boggs and Justin Gray Liverman wereย arrestedย by FBIย in September 2016 and have already been sentenced toย five years in federal prison.
Gamble, of Linford Crescent, Coalville pleaded guilty at Leicester Crown Court to eight charges of “performing a function with intent to secure unauthorised access”ย to computers and two charges of “unauthorised modification of computer material”.
โIt all started by me getting more and more annoyed at how corrupt and cold-blooded the US Government is so I decided to do something about it.โ Gamble told a journalist.
โThe court heard Gamble โfelt particularly stronglyโ about US-backed Israeli violence against Palestinians, the shooting of black people by US police, racist violence by the KKK and the bombing of civilians in Iraq and Syria.โย reportedย The Sun.
Gambleโs defense, William Harbage QC, argued that he was “on the autistic spectrum” and hadย committed the offences when aged 15 and 16.
โMedical experts for theย defence argueย that he is on the autism spectrum and at the time of his offending had the mental development of a 12 or 13-year-old,โ reported The Telegraph.
โHe has no friends to speak off and is closest to his motherย Ann, a cleaner who reportedly won a ยฃ1.6million lottery jackpot in 1997 butย โlost all the money on doomed property deals.”
After his arrest, William Harbage QC told doctors โit was kind of easyโ and that he had little consequences of his actions โin his bedroom on the internet thousands of miles away.โ
The teenager, who is on conditional bail, will be sentenced by Mr Justice Haddon-Cave at the Old Bailey. The date of the sentence is yet to be fixed.