You can tell a lot about a person based on the usernames they pick, whether it’s their favorite sports team, their favorite Star Wars character, or even just their real name. Apparently, though, you can sometimes tell a lot more about a person based on their password, at least if that person is former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort—who was recently indicted on charges involving money laundering and working as an unregistered foreign agent. Manafort pleaded not guilty, but according some digital security researchers, he does seem to have a thing for foreign agents—or at least one specific agent.
As reported by Motherboard, the aforementioned researchers heard about Manafort’s indictment and decided to look into his online presence a bit. Earlier this year, hackers leaked some text messages from Manafort’s daughter’s phone onto the internet, including one that seemed to contain an old email address associated with Manafort. They cross-referenced that address with HaveIBeenPwned.com, a site that lets people know if their data has been compromised in a major hack, found out that it had been, and after downloading the hacked data that included Manafort’s supposed address, they eventually came away with the discovery that—on at least two different website accounts—his password was “bond007.”
So what does this tell us about Manafort? Well, this is where passwords become much more revelatory than usernames. If the hacked email address had been “PaulManafortJamesBond” or something, then it would just be clear to everyone that he really likes James Bond, but making his password a bond reference means it was something just for him. It’s like he’s saying “I’m cool” instead of just “James Bond is cool.” Combined with the possibility that he was secretly working as an agent on behalf of foreign governments while using this password, and it seems like Manafort is just very, very, very full of himself.