Homeland security and other sensitive issues were contained in Pence’s private email account which was confirmed to have been hacked.
It was revealed this week that Mike Pence used a personal email account to conduct official business during his tenure as Governor of Indiana.
USA Today reports that:
Emails released to The Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network, in response to a public records request show Pence communicated via his personal AOL account with top advisers on topics ranging from security gates at the governor’s residence to the state’s response to terror attacks across the globe. In one email, Pence’s top state homeland security adviser relayed an update from the FBI regarding the arrests of several men on federal terror-related charges.
The Indianapolis Star noted that this was particularly concerning to Justin Cappos, a computer security professor at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering.
“It’s one thing to have an AOL account and use it to send birthday cards to grandkids,” he told the Star, adding: “But it’s another thing to use it to send and receive messages that are sensitive and could negatively impact people if that information is public.”
Indeed, as Business Insider reports: “Pence’s email account was compromised in 2016 when a scammer sent an email to his contacts claiming that both Pence and his wife were stranded in the Philippines.”
Ironically, as Business Insider notes: “During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump, Pence, and many of their campaign associates routinely criticized Democrat Hillary Clinton, whose campaign was embroiled in an FBI investigation over her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.”
Corey Nachreiner, Chief Technology Officer at WatchGuard Technologies – a computer security company, told The Indianapolis Star that the personal email accounts of Pence and Clinton were about equally vulnerable to cyber attacks.
“In this case, you know the email address has been hacked,” he told The Indianapolis Star, adding: “It would be hypocritical to consider this issue any different than a private email server.”
Representatives for Pence released the following statement on Thursday:
Similar to previous governors, during his time as Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence maintained a state email account and a personal email account. As Governor, Mr. Pence fully complied with Indiana law regarding email use and retention. Government emails involving his state and personal accounts are being archived by the state consistent with Indiana law, and are being managed according to Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act.
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