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"Omar was pretty good with computers" does not a hacker make. At most what he did was social engineering by obtaining a login of another employee.

It would be interesting to see how exactly he got the password, but I guess that is "part of an ongoing investigation."

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I'd suggest that any way you get around a given system has hack value. As someone else mentioned: social engineers have been called "hackers" before.

When I was doing penetration tests a decade ago, some of my best client engagements required little technical skill to gain access to some of the most prized data on the network (HR, Payroll, access to update the website). You'd be surprised how far you can get in many organizations without exploiting a single software or technology weakness.

Humans are almost always the biggest weakness in any system.

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