Pence used personal email for state business — and was hacked

Vice President Mike Pence routinely used a private email account to conduct public business as governor of Indiana, at times discussing sensitive matters and homeland security issues.

Emails released to The Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network, in response to a public records request show Pence communicated via his personal AOL account with top advisers on topics ranging from security gates at the governor’s residence to the state’s response to terror attacks across the globe. In one email, Pence’s top state homeland security adviser relayed an update from the FBI regarding the arrests of several men on federal terror-related charges.

Cybersecurity experts say the emails raise concerns about whether such sensitive information was adequately protected from hackers, given that personal accounts like Pence’s are typically less secure than government email accounts. In fact, Pence’s personal account was hacked this past summer.

Furthermore, advocates for open government expressed concerns about transparency because personal emails aren’t immediately captured on state servers that are searched in response to public records requests.

Pence’s office in Washington released a written statement Thursday:

Similar to previous governors, during his time as governor of Indiana, Mike Pence maintained a state email account and a personal email account.

As governor, Mr. Pence fully complied with Indiana law regarding email use and retention. Government emails involving his state and personal accounts are being archived by the state consistent with Indiana law and are being managed according to Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act.

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb’s office released 29 pages from Pence’s AOL account but declined to release an unspecified number of emails because the state considers them confidential and too sensitive to release to the public.

That’s of particular concern to Justin Cappos, a computer security professor at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering.

“It’s one thing to have an AOL account and use it to send birthday cards to grandkids,” he said. “But it’s another thing to use it to send and receive messages that are sensitive and could negatively impact people if that information is public.”

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