Phil Goff's emails hacked - 15,000 emails over 12 years offered for sale

Brian from New Lynn

Emails apparently sent and received by Auckland mayor Phil Goff over a 12-year period have been offered with a $20,000 price tag and appear to contain deeply personal information alongside council and Parliamentary work.
Communications sent to the Herald suggest there has been a complete grab of Goff's inbox and sent folders. Among many other topics, they appear to include fundraising plans for Goff's mayoral bid, "confidential" polling data during last year's campaign and sensitive business information. The seller claims to have more than 15,000 emails from an Xtra account in Goff's name with the database spanning from 2007 to 2019. Evidence sent by the seller and examined by the Herald appears to confirm the claims. It is unknown if the seller has offered the emails to other businesses or individuals. Goff would not be interviewed over the alleged breach. In a statement, his chief of staff Nirupa George referred to the Herald revelation as an "alleged hack of his family email account". "Like thousands of other account holders across the country he assumed the service provider's email platform was secure. While the authenticity of the hack has not been verified, the Mayor has discontinued use of the email account and taken advice from experts. "This matter is now subject to investigation by the police and other relevant agencies." Information provided by the would-be seller of Goff's emails appears to show the mayor used his Xtra email address during the time he was a government minister, while leader of the Labour Party, as an MP and since becoming Mayor of Auckland. When asked how it was obtained, the person responded: "The data was forwarded to me by a friend. In email conversations, the person claimed: "I have every sent and received email from 2007 - Oct 2019 including all attachments. "Considering the amount of information and the exclusivity of it I think a fair price would be $20k NZD, but happy to negotiate." The media does not engage in chequebook journalism. Our editorial today explains the rationale of why referencing the emails is of strong public interest.
The media has told Goff's office it will not buy the database and has discontinued contact with the person claiming to hold the information. The person claiming to hold the database sent examples of the material and text files containing subject lines of documents claimed to be in the Inbox and Outbox of Goff's Xtra account. The subject lines in the material appear to show information from Goff's time as Minister of Defence in 2007 through to late 2019. It also shows the database apparently holds personal information, including medical information, personal finances and photographs. Among the emails provided were two dealing with campaign financing. One began with the line: "Team all emails should be on personal addresses or those that cannot be subject to an official information request". Goff appears to have received the email in his Xtra account and sent it to his executive assistant's email account at Parliament.The emails provided also included what appeared to be one sent to Goff as mayor and containing sensitive commercial information about a council transport contract. A purported attached document included specific dollar amounts bid for a transport contract. The media contacted Spark after it had confirmed the emails on offer were likely to be genuine. A spokeswoman for Spark, which provides customers with Xtra email accounts, said: "In line with our security protocols, when we were made aware of this issue we contacted the customer and suspended the account.
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