What’s It’s Like To Get Your Electronic Communications Hacked And Eavesdropped On.

When a soon to be ousted CEO gets paranoid and hacks on his executive’s Whatsapp and emails.

In a time when people are concerned about the NSA’s electronic communications surveillance, I thought about right about my experiences of getting my Whatsapp to chat log and emails hacked.

The CEO of a successful VC-funded e-commerce startup was embezzling money and was increasingly getting paranoid as the investors discovered what he was doing. He did not trust the new management including myself and the other cofounders. He was in denial that he was even doing anything wrong believing his lies. The CEO was fighting his case in court. During the legal process, new management and co-founders were still working. To find out what was being told to investors or to see what investors’ plans were; he hacked executives’ emails and Whatsapp messenger apps.

There were some pros to getting WhatsApp hacked. First, it cleared us of any suspicious wrongdoing on our parts in the eyes of the investor side. Second, they respected our decision-making process and handling of the whole political situation. Third, it allowed us to be completely honest and no longer had to speak without restraint.
The cons of all WhatsApp chat leaks. It was embarrassing in the conversation we had made inappropriate off-the-cuff jokes. There was talk about womanizing tendencies and even recreational drug usage; all of which is very unbecoming of an executive. There were even critical remarks on the way how investors made decisions. The most damaging was our talks of negotiation strategy cam’s for a pair she shifted company was to collapse because of the embezzlement situation and CEO-BOD investors conflict.

We were very lucky that there were not too many consequences from the chat leak. Weirdly, the investors seem to like us more as people because we came off as more fun individuals and they have their skeletons in closets. The only real blowback would probably be that we are now perceived and even treated as ‘mercenary’ executives.

The key Takeaway lesson from all this was with any electronic communication; assume that it can be hacked and used against you. The best way to prevent any damage is to be a person of good character, values, and ethics.