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O'Reilly: Authorities Closing in on Hackers of My Site

Hackers made off with personal information of 205 billoreilly.com members

By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld

September 25, 2008 — CSO —

Conservative talk show host Bill O'Reilly has claimed that the FBI and the Secret Service are closing in on the hackers who broke into his Web site and published personal information, including usernames, passwords and mailing addresses, of more than of 200 of his followers.

A spokesman for the Secret Service, however, said he was unable to find any evidence that the agency is investigating the O'Reilly hack.

O'Reilly, who hosts the The O'Reilly Factor television program on the Fox News Channel as well as the syndicated talk radio program "The Radio Factor," acknowledged the hack last Friday. Then, he called the attackers "leftist hackers," and argued that their actions were in retaliation for his comments about the unauthorized access of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's Yahoo Mail account earlier in the week.

The hackers made off with the names, usernames, passwords, and mailing addresses of 205 premium members of billoreilly.com. The information was later published on the Internet.

A message on the O'Reilly site later called the attack "a minor hacking incident" and said that no credit card information had been exposed. It also said that only members who had joined prior to Sept. 14 were affected.

Premium members pay $49.95 annually to access additional content on the site, including its message boards.

Last Sunday, O'Reilly sent members an e-mail that claimed federal authorities were hot on the trail. "The FBI and Secret Service are close to indicting some of the perpetrators and we will keep you posted when the arrests are made," read the e-mail, which was submitted by a member to the Gateway Pundit blog.

"Rest assured that we are on this," O'Reilly continued in his message to members. "Our defense of Sarah Palin has led some criminals to attempt to disrupt our enterprise. At this moment, federal authorities and our attorneys are compiling information against these people."

Although the FBI did not respond to queries about whether it is, in fact, investigating, a spokesman for the Secret Service, which shares cyber crime investigative responsibilities with the FBI, said he wasn't able to locate anyone in the agency who is looking into the O'Reilly case.

"I can't find any indication that we're working this," the spokesman said.