Obama mobile-phone records improperly accessed
Published: 21 Nov 2008 08:53 GMT
US president-elect Barack Obama's mobile-phone billing records were improperly accessed by employees of Verizon Wireless, CNN reported late on Thursday.
Obama's transition team was informed of the breach by Verizon Wireless representatives on Wednesday, team spokesman Robert Gibbs told the news agency.
The phone, a voice flip-phone with no email access, is no longer active or being used by Obama, the report said. Lists of phone numbers and calls made by Obama could have been accessed, but "nobody was monitoring voicemail", Gibbs is quoted as saying.
Verizon Wireless has notified federal law-enforcement authorities, Verizon Wireless president Lowell McAdam wrote in an internal company email distributed on Wednesday, which CNN obtained. The Secret Service has been informed, Gibbs said.
Employees who viewed the records without authorisation could be fired, McAdam said in the email.
This is the latest in a string of technology-related security incidents to hit this election season. In early November, Newsweek reported that PCs used by the campaigns of Obama and former Republican presidential candidate John McCain were compromised last summer.
In September, McCain's running mate Alaska governor Sarah Palin had her Yahoo email account broken into. And back in April, someone exploited a weakness in the website for Obama's campaign and redirected some visitors to then-Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton's site.
Credit: Report: Obama's cell records improperly accessed from CNET News
Did you find this article useful?
5 out of 5 people found this useful
Digg
Slashdot
Del.ici.ous
Stumble
Reddit
