WikiLeaks Posts Emails Taken From CIA Director

WikiLeaks has posted content apparently taken from CIA Director John Brennan's personal email account after he was hacked earlier this week.

An anonymous cyber attacker posted a number of documents online on 19 October said to have been taken from Mr Brennan's AOL account, including addresses from his contact file.

The hacker, who told Sky News he is an American citizen under the age of 20 , claimed he posed as a Verizon employee and tricked another employee into revealing Mr Brennan's personal information.

The WikiLeaks post included a draft security clearance application which Mr Brennan was compiling while applying for a job as White House counter-terrorism adviser.

It was unclear if any national security information was compromised. The application also included his wife's Social Security number and the names of people Mr Brennan worked with during a long career at the CIA.

In a statement, the CIA said posting the content was a crime.

It read: "The Brennan family is the victim. This attack is something that could happen to anyone and should be condemned, not promoted.

"There is no indication that any of the documents released thus far are classified.

"In fact, they appear to be documents that a private citizen with national security interests and expertise would be expected to possess."

The documents all date from before 2009, when Mr Brennan joined the White House staff.

Among them are a partially-written position paper on the future of intelligence, a memo on Iran, a paper from a Republican lawmaker on CIA interrogations and a summary of a contract dispute between the CIA and Mr Brennan's private company Analysis Corporation.

The hacker posted a number of documents to Twitter accounts @phphax and @_CWA_ and told Sky News the cyber breach was "as easy as f***".

He also claimed to have repeatedly prank-called Mr Brennan since August.