Cybersecurity

UK Teen Posed as CIA Chief, Got Hands on US Intelligence in Afghanistan, Iran

Talk about sloppy US intelligence: A British 15-year-old managed to access top secret US intelligence on Afghanistan and Iran by posing as former CIA chief John Brennan.

Kane Gamble, now 18, was able to gain access to US plans of intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran by pretending he was former CIA chief John Brennan, all while Gamble was just 15.

According to a report by the Telegraph, the teenager never left his bedroom in Leicestershire to conduct his hacking operations. What's more interesting, he didn't even technically hack into US intel systems, but rather used "social engineering," or manipulating people into doing what one needs done.

"The teenager persuaded call handlers at an internet giant that he was John Brennan, the then-director of the CIA, to gain access to his computers, and at an FBI helpdesk that he was Mark Giuliano, then the agency's Deputy Director, to re-gain access to an intelligence database," the Telegraph reports.