This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race

by Nicole Perlroth

Guccifer 2.0’s hacking alias and Illuminati reference were all part of an elaborate Russian cover story. The original Guccifer (pronounced GUCCI-fer) was a real person: Marcel Lazar Lehel, a Romanian cybercriminal who used the pseudonym to hack members of the Bush family, Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi memos, and Colin Powell’s website. He made headlines with his leak of paintings George W. Bush had painted of himself in the shower. Lehel was known for fixating on the Illuminati, a shadowy “deep state” that conspiracy theorists believe controls the world. Lehel had been arrested in Romania two years earlier and extradited to Virginia to face hacking charges. While awaiting sentencing, Lehel claimed to have hacked Clinton’s private server. Now Guccifer 2.0 claimed that he was just picking up where Lehel’s efforts had left off.