A number of email accounts belonging to former US President George W. Bush and several of his family members and close friends have been hacked, with a huge amount of sensitive information and private photos published online.

Without doubt, some of the most embarrassing items exposed include two images of naked self-portraits of the former president in the bath and in the shower, which are believed to have been created by Bush himself, reports The Smoking Gun. Other data obtained by the hacker, who calls himself Guccifer, includes a list of names, addresses, cell phone numbers and emails of Bush family members and close friends, as well as an email giving details of a passcode needed to access the main security gate at one of the president’s residences.

No doubt the nude self-portraits will open up George W. to even more of the ridicule that he’s become accustomed to these days, but the hack itself represents a major security breach for one of America’s most closely guarded families.

Bush Jr.’s self-portraits

George Bush Senior’s “Funeral” Discussed

A number of the intercepted emails refer to the family’s patriarch, George HW Bush, discussing the perilous health of the former president over the Christmas period. One email, sent out on November 28 by Neil Bush to a number of family members, gave specific details about his illness and prognosis. This was followed by another email from George Bush Senior’s chief of staff addressing the Bush children, which stated that the “funeral team is having an emergency meeting at 10am just to go through all the details.” The email included a note not to tell Barbara Bush, George’s wife, of the situation.

In addition, the hacker also obtained photos of a stricken-looking George Bush Senior lying in a hospital bed. These were apparently swiped from daughter Dorothy Bush’s email account.

A sick George Bush Sr. & younger George posing

In an interview with The Smoking Gun, the hacker gloated that he had been under investigation by the FBI for some time, and that he had hacked hundreds of accounts in the past and had access to even more sensitive information.

Some of these hacked accounts belonged to well-known friends of the Bush family, including CBS Sports presenter Jim Nantz, and Willard Heminway. In one correspondence between Nantz and Bush Jr., the more recent ex-president provides his friend with a street address for the home where he was staying in Dallas, as well as the four-digit code needed to get past the main security gate.

The hack will likely cause some considerable embarrassment to the Bush family, but it also raises questions about the level of protection given to a family that includes two former presidents. For its part, the Secret Service has refused to make any comment about the hack, other than to say it’s aware of the incident and an investigation is ongoing.