A number of high-profile hacking attckes have taken place during this year so far. And here is yet another one which, from the looks of it, can seriously affect the U.S. Presidential elections. According to reports, a hacker has claimed that he has been able to gain access to Mitt Romney’s tax returns and is now demanding $1 million in Bitcoins to keep his mouth shut.

The hacker, after having made copies of the tax returns, added them to USB drives and shipped those to both Democratic and Republican Party offices. This was done as a proof to confirm that he indeed was in possession of the tax returns of Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Before long, U.S. Secret Service had jumped into the mess and took the USB drive from GOP party office, to confirm whether or not the claims were genuine. According to the Republican party executive director in Williamson Country, Jean Barwick, “We don’t know what this will turn into, if anything. [The Secret Service] didn’t say what they would do with it.”

The hacker claimed that he was able to get his hands on the tax returns by stealing them from PricewaterhouseCoopers in Franklin, Tenn. The letter that the hacker sent reads,

“Dear PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP,

… We were able to gain access to your network file servers and copy over the tax documents for one Willard M Romney and Ann D Romney. We are sure that once you figure out where the security breach was, some people will probably get fired but that is not our concern.”

The demands of the hacker are clear; to be paid $1 million in Bitcoins soon or he would turn over the documents to all major media houses. While the ransom demand is originally directed at Mitt Romney, the hacker has also said that anyone willing to pay that much will be given the documents.

Courtesy: Venture Beat

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