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Former Sen. Hassan Aide Stole Gigabytes Of ‘High Value’ Data
Luke Rosiak | Investigative Reporter | 04/05/2019

A former IT aide to New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan mounted an “extraordinarily extensive data-theft scheme” against the office, the culprit’s plea agreement states.

The plot included the installation of tiny “keylogging” devices that picked up every keystroke. Between July and October 2018, former IT aide Jackson Cosko worked with an unnamed accomplice, a then-current Hassan employee, who repeatedly lent him a key that he used to enter the office at night and who allegedly tried to destroy evidence for him.

Cosko accepted responsibility for the events revealed by federal prosecutors in court Friday.

A statement of facts that Cosko agreed to says that from July to October 2018, he “engaged in an extraordinarily extensive data-theft scheme, copying entire network drives, sorting and organizing sensitive data, and exploring ways to use that data to his benefit,” arranging it into folders such as “high value.”

“The defendant gained access to Senator Hassan’s Office by unlawfully obtaining keys from a staffer who was (at the time) still employed in the Office” and using it to repeatedly burglarize the office. He placed small, unobtrusive devices on at least six Senate computers that captured every keystroke, including usernames and passwords which he would then use to access further documents.

The theft occurred after Cosko was fired from Hassan’s office in May 2018 for undisclosed reasons, then hired by Democratic Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, giving him access to the House computer network. (RELATED: Suspect In Kavanaugh Doxxing Downloaded ‘More Information Than Originally Understood)

He repeatedly sneaked into her office late at night and gathered dozens of gigabytes of data including:

• dozens of usernames and passwords belonging to Senate employees
• tens of thousands of emails and internal documents
• credit card information belonging to Senate employees
• social security numbers belonging to Senate employees
• personally identifying information belonging to hundreds of other persons (presumably constituents)
• private phone numbers and home addresses of senators

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https://dailycaller.com/2019/04/05/senator-hassan-aid-data-theft/