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'Teen' Hacker Claims Another Victim In Campaign Against Government

The teen hacker who pranked the US spy chief is now bragging about hacking social media accounts of a former intelligence executive.
Image: Montypeter/Shutterstock

The alleged teen hacker who hacked the telephone account of US spy chief James Clapper earlier this week, diverting calls to his house to a pro-Palestinian organization, is back at it again.

On Thursday, the hacker, only known as "Cracka," tweeted a series of screenshots from the hacked social media accounts of Vonna Weir Heaton, a former senior executive at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency or NGA. (Cracka used his new Twitter handle "@dickreject")

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Cracka, who used to claim to be part of a collective called "Crackas With Attitude" or CWA, appeared to have gained control of Heaton's Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. Cracka changed her LinkedIn account to display a message saying "My LinkedIn got took by Cracka."

He also defaced her Facebook account, writing "the US Government funds Israel to kill innocent people in Palestine. #FreePalestine #FreeGaza. BTW: Bush did 9/11."

Heaton, who now works at the government contractor Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp, a company that works closely with the NGA, did not respond to a phone call to her personal number. Ball Aerospace did not respond to a request for comment, while a spokesperson for the NGA simply said he is aware of the reports, but also that Heaton is a former employee. The FBI declined to comment.

This latest hack seems to confirm that Cracka and his associates aren't done targeting government, or government-linked personalities. The targeting of Heaton comes on the heels of a prank Cracka pulled on the US intelligence chief, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper. On Monday, Cracka claimed that he had hacked into Clapper's Internet Service Provider, as well as his email account, and his wife's email account. While in control of Clapper's telephone account, he redirected calls to that number to the Free Palestine Movement.

The DNI confirmed that Clapper had been targeted on Tuesday.

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In an interview with Mikael Thalen at Infowars, Cracka explained that he targeted Heaton because she worked closely with Clapper, and because "she's a government retard and deserves everything bad to happen to her, just like every other [government] loser that's gonna be breached."

"These guys aren't rocket scientists. I don't think they're actually smart enough to actually get whoever they want."

Cracka did not respond to Motherboard's request for an interview.

But it's more likely that Heaton was simply low-hanging fruit for the hackers, according to Michael Adams, an information security expert who served more than two decades in the US Special Operations Command. In fact, her number appeared in Clapper's call logs, which might have prompted Cracka to target her.

"These guys aren't rocket scientists. I don't think they're actually smart enough to actually get whoever they want, I think they're just able to pivot off information once they get it," Adams told me in a phone interview, sending a message to Cracka: "You're a good social engineer but you're not a hacker, fuck you."

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Adams added that what's puzzling about Cracka's latest actions is that neither him nor his associates seem to have the same capabilities they displayed last year, when they hacked the AOL email of CIA Director John Brennan, and, more importantly, appeared to get access to a series of sensitive law enforcement online tools and databases.

What hasn't changed, he said, are the motives.

"As much as they claim they're not seeking fame, that's exactly what they're seeking. The more they talk about how they're not here for fame the more you know that's exactly what they're after," he said. "They're fucking glory hounds."