Chicago (IL) - The personal email account of Alaskan Governor and Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was hacked and some of the contents have been posted publicly on the Web. Hackers of the Anonymous group have taken credit for the intrusion and published screenshots of e-mail messages, contact lists, photos and other information belonging to Governor Palin.
At least eight different screenshots and several archive files were circulated on Wednesday, highlighting Palin’s conversation with Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell and his campaign for Congress. A screenshot of the Governor’s inbox reveals recent emails, including one from Amy McCorkell who was appointed to the Governor’s Advisory Board on Alchoholism and Drug Abuse in 2007 by Sarah Palin. The email is one of support for Palin, encouraging her not to let all of the bad press that she has been receiving lately get to her, it also requests that Palin pray for McCorkell, she tells Palin, “I need strength to 1. Keep employment, 2. Not have to choose”.
One of the final screenshots shows an email that “Sarah Palin” sent to Ivy Frye, one of her aides. However, this email was actually sent by someone claiming to be part of the group Anonymous and telling the aide that the Yahoo account password has been changed in effort to prevent any other Anonymous members from accessing the account again. The email contains the new password.
At this point the Republican party has yet to make any comments about the apparent intrusion. WikiLeaks, which is hosting the data retrieved from Palin’s email account, sent a press release to reporters stating that Anonymous gained access to Palin’s personal email account sometime around midnight on Tuesday.
At least eight different screenshots and several archive files were circulated on Wednesday, highlighting Palin’s conversation with Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell and his campaign for Congress. A screenshot of the Governor’s inbox reveals recent emails, including one from Amy McCorkell who was appointed to the Governor’s Advisory Board on Alchoholism and Drug Abuse in 2007 by Sarah Palin. The email is one of support for Palin, encouraging her not to let all of the bad press that she has been receiving lately get to her, it also requests that Palin pray for McCorkell, she tells Palin, “I need strength to 1. Keep employment, 2. Not have to choose”.
One of the final screenshots shows an email that “Sarah Palin” sent to Ivy Frye, one of her aides. However, this email was actually sent by someone claiming to be part of the group Anonymous and telling the aide that the Yahoo account password has been changed in effort to prevent any other Anonymous members from accessing the account again. The email contains the new password.
At this point the Republican party has yet to make any comments about the apparent intrusion. WikiLeaks, which is hosting the data retrieved from Palin’s email account, sent a press release to reporters stating that Anonymous gained access to Palin’s personal email account sometime around midnight on Tuesday.