GMail Hack Aimed at White House

The Wall Street Journal reports:

People who work at the White House were among those targeted by the China-based hackers who broke into Google Inc.'s Gmail accounts, according to one U.S. official.

The hackers likely were hoping the officials were conducting administration business on their private emails, according to lawmakers and security experts.

The government has acknowledged senior administration officials were targeted in the "phishing'' attacks on hundreds of users of the email service. White House officials declined to discuss who was targeted.

The Obama administration reiterated Thursday that no official messages were compromised. But lawmakers and outside computer-security experts said recent White House history suggests administration officials sometimes use personal email to talk business, despite rules against doing so.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security are working with Google to investigate. "These allegations are very serious," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday.

U.S. officials briefed on the incident said the Obama administration isn't going to raise the matter directly with the Chinese government until the facts become more clear. "Law enforcement needs to dig into this over the very short term so we have all the facts and procedures set out—then diplomacy," a U.S. official said.

White House officials in both the current and previous administrations have been accused of using personal emails to conduct business. No matter which party is in power, critics have argued, officials use personal accounts as a way to avoid having those messages turned over to congressional investigators, released under the Freedom of Information Act or retained for historic archives.