Network hacker read secret service emails

A hacker broke into an American wireless carrier network over at least seven months and read emails and personal computer files of hundreds of customers - including the Secret Service agent investigating him.

The hacker obtained an internal Secret Service memorandum and part of a mutual assistance legal treaty from Russia. The documents contained “highly sensitive information pertaining to ongoing … criminal cases”, according to court records.

The break-in targeted the network for Bellevue, Washington-based T-Mobile USA, which has 16.3 million customers in the United States. It was discovered during a broad Secret Service investigation, Operation Firewall, which targeted underground hacker organisations known as Shadowcrew, Carderplanet and Darkprofits.

Nicolas Jacobsen, 21, of Santa Ana, California, a computer engineer, has been charged in US District Court in Los Angeles with the break-in. Investigators said they traced the hacker’s online activities to a hotel near Buffalo, New York, where Jacobsen was staying.

Jacobsen, who was arrested in October in California, has been released on €19,300 bail posted by his uncle, who was ordered to keep his own personal computer locked up so Jacobsen could not use it.

The hacker was able to view the names and social security numbers of 400 customers, all of whom were notified in writing about the break-in, T-Mobile said. It said customer credit card numbers and other financial information never were revealed.

“Safeguarding T-Mobile customer information is a top priority for the company,” said a spokesman, Peter Dobrow. He said T-Mobile discovered the break-in late in 2003 and “immediately took steps that prevented any further access to this system”.

Court records said the hacker had access to T-Mobile customer information from at least March through October last year.

An online offer in March 2004, traced to Jacobsen, claimed hackers could look up the name, social security number, birth date and passwords for voice mails and emails for T-Mobile customers, court records said.

The Secret Service said its agent, Peter Cavicchia, should not have been using his personal handheld computer for government work. Cavicchia, a respected investigator who has specialised in tracking hackers, was a T-Mobile customer who coincidentally was investigating the T-Mobile break-in, according to court documents and a Secret Service spokesman, Jonathan Cherry.

Cavicchia, who won the Secret Service’s medal of valour for his actions in the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, resigned to work in the private sector.

He said he was not asked to leave and said he was cleared during an internal investigation into whether he had improperly revealed sensitive information or broken agency rules.

The case against Jacobsen was first reported by the website Security Focus, which is owned by Symantec Corporation.

Cherry, the Secret Service spokesman, said the agency’s own email servers were not affected by the T-Mobile break-in. “The account was a personal account of a Secret Service agent that was for a time compromised,” he said.