A teenage hacker who bragged about cracking the accounts of senior US intelligence officials will be sentenced later.
From his family home on a Leicestershire housing estate, Kane Gamble, 18, targeted high-profile figures such as the then CIA chief John Brennan and deputy director of the FBI Mark Giuliano between June 2015 and February 2016, when he was arrested.
Gamble was linked with the group Crackas With Attitude, who reportedly claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Several sensitive documents were reportedly obtained from Mr Brennan’s private inbox, including a 47-page application for top secret security clearance.
A Comcast cable TV and broadband account belonging to James Clapper, director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama, was also targeted.
Reports at the time of his arrest suggested Gamble had accessed Mr Clapper’s home phone and internet, and his wife’s email account.
Other names on the list of people Gamble targeted included President Obama’s deputy national security adviser Avril Haines, his senior science and technology adviser John Holdren, the then Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and FBI Special Agent Amy Hess.
Gamble also tried to hack into the FBI’s Law Enforcement Exchange Portal and the US Department of Justice’s network.
Last October, Gamble, of Linford Crescent, Coalville, pleaded guilty at Leicester Crown Court to eight charges of “performing a function with intent to secure unauthorised access” to computers and two charges of “unauthorised modification of computer material”.
William Harbage QC, defending, had said Gamble was “on the autistic spectrum” and had committed the offences when aged 15 and 16.
The teenager, who is on conditional bail, will be sentenced by Mr Justice Haddon-Cave at the Old Bailey.