In the wake of hacking the Yahoo! e-mail account of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Web sleuths and the Feds may have nabbed the perpetrator. Meanwhile, Associated Press reporters were apparently in e-mail conversation with the suspect even as authorities were attempting to track him down.
According to reports in Knoxville’s Tennessean, Democrat State Representative Mike Kernell admitted that his son, David Kernell is being questioned by authorities in connection with the crime. The Secret Service and the FBI launched an official investigation on September 17.
Kernell, 20, is a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Rep. Kernell refused to disclose any further information about his son, including his whereabouts.
In a message on a Web site frequented by hackers, a poster who identified himself as ‘rubico’ explained how he cracked Palin’s Yahoo! account. The hacker tracked Palin’s Yahoo! e-mail address from materials posted in the media, and then used the ‘password reset’ function to get into the account.
By successfully answering the account security question, ‘rubico’ was able to gain exclusive control of Palin’s e-mail by substituting his own password — ‘popcorn.’ The stored security question was: “Where did you meet your husband?” The hacker used online search to glean background information on Palin, and eventually hit on “Wasilla High School.”
Analysts, of course, note that such security questions are less than secure. The hacker continues in his message to express frustration over his inability to download all the material. He then posted the password to the board after leaving screen captures of a few messages, family pictures and the inbox on the Wikileaks Web site, and asks other hackers to check out the material.
Alarmed by the message, another anonymous message board member logged into the Palin account, changed the password again, then contacted the Palin family with the new password…