A former reporter has filed a lawsuit against the federal government alleging that her computer was hacked without her permission between 2011 and 2013, and is seeking $35 million in damages.
The allegations were formally presented this week by Sharyl Attkisson, and according to her, the government was monitoring the computers and phones she used for personal as well as work purposes.
Attkisson was an investigative journalist, and in a book published last year she states that she became the subject of government surveillance for her attempt to learn more information about the 2012 attack on an American convoy in Benghazi, Libya.
In a statement to The Hill, journalist Attkisson said that three scans of her devices revealed that sophisticated malware was used by hackers to learn information about online accounts she maintained for different services.
She also claims that her Skype conversations have been monitored . All of them are dictated by the US government, but the response the journalist received from the Department of Justice on the matter rejects her claims.
Her computer was analyzed by many security experts and on one occasion they found spyware evidence that was sending information to an IP address that, according to the claims, had been assigned to a device belonging to the government.
The anonymous security expert quoted in the book says that the perpetrators had skills “beyond those of even the best non-government hackers.”
However, the first rule of hacking is to hide the real IP address, and an expert would certainly make the connection in such a way that the real location could never be traced or a device under his control. This does not mean that Attkisson's claims could be invalid, given that the malware used in this case is available only to federal agencies.
