Security Firm, CBS Not Talking About Attkisson’s Computer Hacking

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Former CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson’s forthcoming tell-all memoir closes with a disquieting revelation about the computer intrusions that she first opened up about more than a year ago.

The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple nabbed an advanced copy of “Stonewalled,” which is due out next week, and he shared the conclusions that were drawn from Don Allison, a consultant at the security firm KoreLogic who inspected Attkisson’s compromised computer.

While a great deal of data has been expertly wiped in an attempt to cover-up the deed, Don is able to find remnants of what was once there. There’s key evidence of a government computer connection to my computer. A sort of backdoor link that leads to an ISP address for a government computer that can’t be accessed by the general public on the Web. It’s an undeniable link to the U.S. government.

Allison is apparently one of the only individuals whose actual name is provided in a book that is littered with pseudonyms. One individual, a government source identified by Attkisson as “Number One,” said that the computer intrusions are “[w]orse than anything Nixon ever did.”

Wemple noted in his previous write-up of the book that Attkisson also described anomalies with her phone and television.

According to Attkisson, “Number One” concluded that her computer was hacked by “a sophisticated entity that used commercial, nonattributable spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency.”

Bob Austin, the president and co-founder of KoreLogic, told Wemple that a confidentiality agreement would likely preclude the firm from discussing its work on Attkisson’s computer.

When reached by TPM on Tuesday, CBS News declined to comment. The network confirmed last year that a security firm determined that Attkisson’s computer had been “accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012.”

Attkisson resigned from CBS earlier this year.

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