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I wish I knew why security does this character assassination routine with low-skill hacks. They clearly got in, bumbled attempt or not. Is it somehow helping everyone to know they fucked up? Whose expectations are we changing here?

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Who is “security” here? In my experience, if you ask most working security professionals, they would agree that social engineering is by far their largest vulnerability. All the cryptography stuff is fun and cool but really the work is all about preventing phishing, so I don’t know any working security engineers who would call this a low-skill hack.

Well, I see 2 reasons here: 1/ when an attack is deemed a low-profile one, it is a way to say that the targeted company might be to blame, at least in part, for not having adequate security protocols; 2/ in this instance, some people might be frustrated that the DM of high profile people won't leak on the internet because of a lack of preparation from the attackers.

Most of the time, the "character assassination routine" is to emphasize the first point.

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