Expect hackers to try to disgrace presidential candidates with electronic extortion and other forms of digital deception during the upcoming primaries, say some former hackers and computer security specialists.
The surge in social networking has coincided with the rise of social engineering, or tricking a computer user into revealing personal data — perhaps the answer to a password recovery question — by posing as a trusted acquaintance. Hacker collectives Anonymous and LulzSec, and presumably China, have exploited this tactic, and other online gambits, to filch law enforcement authorities’ personal data, and to gain access to the Gmail accounts of senior federal officials and military email addresses.
