>>> service are investigating an apparent cyber threat against high profile celebrities and political figures, including first lady michelle obama and vice president joe biden . it centers around a webb that has posted what it claims to be the personal information of over a dozen celebrities and officials. the information, some of which is out of date, includes social security numbers , mortgage amounts, credit card information, car loans, banking info. it does not appear the information was hacked but rather acquired through other means. it is not yet clear who created the site and exactly why. joining me now, " huffington post " reporter, jerry. i just got this in my hand. reuters is reporting that equifax says the report were accessed through annual credit report .com. also used by other credit reporting companies. what do you know about there investigation? how they were able to get this information?
>> the fbi and the secret service have said that they are investigating this as well as the lapd. if the hackers did get the information from credit reporting agencies , the credit reports have an enormous amount of sensitive information on them as you mentioned. mortgages, credit cards , social security numbers . this sort of information is dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands, it can be used to commit identity theft .
>> knowing those potential dangers, what can you tell me regarding the security measure for these credit reporting agencies ? i would imagine with this kind of valuable information, we're talking about the first lady of the united states , the vice president here. critical information. even the police chief of los angeles . this information now splattered online. we're not showing the website but it is there. what are these credit agencies doing to protect all of our information?
>> well, you know, the credit reporting agencies , given that they have somewhat sensitive information , you would think that they would take a lot of pains to have very strong cyber security . none of these people who have claimed to have, none of these celebrities or high profile people have said they've been hacked but these credit reporting agencies , if the information did come from there you would think they would have very strong cyber security measures.
>> so this is not a so-called hacking but is it i.d. theft? what does it fall under?
>> what is interesting is that on the internet, social security numbers of people are bought and sold regularly. for hackers to post it publicly suggests that perhaps they're more interested in embarrassing these people than actually committing identity theft .
>> for example, where the first lady's information, alleged information is listed, it says this is more directed at her husband. that they like her, quote unquote on here. you have this information on alleged mortgage amounts. once it is out there online, it is accurate. what can they do at this point?
>> well, the alleged victims, one step they could take is they could get a free credit monitoring report. and that way these credit reporting agencies can monitor your credit and make sure --
>> that would be a heck of a phone call , the first lady calling free credit.com. that's the most anyone can do? if that's the most the first lady can do, there are people at home wondering, who can get into their information? an ex, an enemy, anybody.
>> besides free credit report , and a credit report . this is something that's done whenever social security numbers are disclosed publicly or leaked. they'll offer free credit reporting and that's generally the first step to making sure that your identity isn't stolen.
>> are you at all surprised when you look at the list of alleged victims here, that this was able to be pulled off? you're the technology expert. this doesn't happen every day. but are you unimpressed by this list that they were able to get access to?
>> personally i'm not at all surprised. as i report about hackers. they continually amaze me with their abilities to break into even the most secure and sophisticated systems, high profile organizations and government agencies are getting hacked on an almost daily or weekly basis.
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/newsnation/51151852/
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