An anonymous tipster claims to have hacked into Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's private email account.
The tipster told Gawker today (June 5) that by guessing the answer to a security question — What is your favorite pet? — he was able to gain access to mittromney@hotmail.com, the account Romney used to communicate with his staff as recently as 2006.
In an email to Gawker, the tipster said he learned of Romney's Hotmail address through a batch of old emails released today by the Wall Street Journal. In his tip, he included the answer to the security question, and the new password he allegedly set up for the email account as well as Romney's Dropbox account. (Gawker blacked out both the answer to the security question and the new password.)
SecurityNewsDaily sent an email to the alleged hijacked account. It was not immediately returned.
Gawker contacted Romney's campaign communications director, Gail Gitcho, who said she had no comment when asked about the alleged Romney email hack, but asked to speak to Gawker's attorney.