Computer of alleged Sarah Palin hacker had spyware
IDG News Service - The 21-year-old college student charged with hacking former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account was using a compromised computer that was secretly logging and reporting information without his knowledge, his lawyers say.
In court filings, attorneys for David Kernell say that the Acer notebooks that FBI agents seized from Kernell's Knoxville, Tenn., apartment last year apparently contained spyware.
"The program, which was installed by an unknown method before the computer ever came into Mr. Kernell's possession, uses sophisticated technology to record and report personal information without the user's knowledge," his attorneys state, in a Nov. 30 motion.
Although the court documents do not identify the program, they indicate that the software was reverse-engineered and analyzed within the five forensic reports the U.S. government produced for this case. Those reports have been filed under seal because they contain personal information.
Kernell is facing a possible five-year prison sentence on a one-count felony computer hacking charge. Prosecutors say that he accessed Palin's personal e-mail account in September 2008, while she was running as a vice presidential candidate, and used Yahoo's password reset feature to gain access to her mail. The e-mails were posted online and an anonymous member of the 4chan discussion board named Rubico claimed responsibility for the act.
In her recent autobiography, Palin described the incident as the "most disruptive and discouraging" event of her losing 2008 campaign.
It's not uncommon for computers to be infected with malicious software that logs personal information, said Paul Ferguson a security researcher with antivirus vendor Trend Micro. In fact, he guesses that one in five PCs have some sort of malicious program on them, giving backdoor access to cyber-criminals.
Kernell is the son of Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell. His trial is set to begin April 20.
Palin e-mail hack
- Sarah Palin ordered to preserve her Yahoo mail
- Kernell pleads innocent to Palin hack charge
- IT Blogwatch: Sarah Palin's alleged email hacker pleads, "Not guilty"
- Accused Palin hacker has a history of intrusion
- Scott McPherson: Throw the book at Palin's email hacker
- Tenn. student indicted for hacking Palin's e-mail
- Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail all vulnerable to Palin-style password-reset hack
- FBI searches Tenn. student's apartment in Palin hacking case
- IT Blogwatch: Sarah Palin e-mail hacker drops anchor, arrr!
- Security researchers ponder possible Palin hacks
- Sharon Machlis: Yahoo users: Like Sarah Palin, you may be vulnerable to an e-mail hack



- Excel 2010 Cheat Sheet
- Register for this Computerworld Insider Cheat Sheet and gain access to hundreds of premium content articles, guides, product reviews and more.
- Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory
- As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable,...
- Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.
- Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in...
- Top Solutions and Tools to Prevent Devastating Malware
- Custom malware frequently goes undetected. According to Forrester Research, the best way to reduce risk of breach is to deploy file integrity monitoring...
- X-Ray of the PCI Process-4 Proactive Steps
- This white paper from Forrester Research Inc., helps break PCI into understandable components. Security and risk professionals will gain knowledge and insight into...
- Identity Governance: The Business Imperatives
- This white paper describes the business challenges and opportunities that are driving interest in Identity Governance while discussing considerations your organization should make... All Security White Papers
- Live Webcast
Playing Defense: Staying on Top of Your Disaster Recovery Game - When it comes to disaster recovery, rapidly growing data volumes, distributed computing models, and new technologies all combine to present an ever-changing playing...
- Introduction to VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5
- Traditional disaster recovery solutions are often too expensive, complex and unreliable to meet business requirements. As a result, IT departments are hesitant to...
- The Top Ten Secrets to Avoiding SAN Performance Problems
- Maintaining peak performance while simultaneously addressing the root cause of SAN errors is challenging. Learn the most common SAN problems and explore new...
- Deduplication Without Compromise
- Go inside Quantum's scalable, high-performance, multi-protocol new DXi deduplication appliances, designed to make backup much more effective. Discover how the new future-proof DXi6700...
- Director of Disk Products Discusses DXi6700
- Discover how the new DXi 6700 series of deduplication appliances provide investment protection and a future-proof feature set, all while delivering fast, scalable,...
- Playing Defense: Staying on Top of Your Disaster Recovery Game
- When it comes to disaster recovery, rapidly growing data volumes, distributed computing models, and new technologies all combine to present an ever-changing playing... All Security Webcasts