Intellectual Property Law

Data Breach Exposes RAF Staff to Blackmail

By Kim Zetter

Yet another breach of sensitive, unencrypted data is making news in the United Kingdom. This time the breach puts Royal Air Force staff at serious risk of being targeted for blackmail by foreign intelligence services or others.

The breach involves audio recordings with high-ranking air force officers who were being interviewed in-depth for a security clearance. In the interviews, the officers disclosed information about extra-marital affairs, drug abuse, visits to prostitutes, medical conditions, criminal convictions and debt histories — information the military needed to determine their security risk.

The recordings were stored on three unencrypted hard drives that disappeared last year.

The interviews were conducted to ensure that the officers “can be trusted with sensitive government information and property,” the Ministry of Defense said.

But the interviews have now become a huge security risk for the officers and the Ministry of Defence, which has proven itself to be untrustworthy when it comes to guarding sensitive information and property.

The ministry acknowledged last September that three unencrypted hard drives disappeared, but only disclosed at the time that the drives contained the banking information and home addresses of 50,000 Air Force personnel. But an internal ministry memo, obtained recently by a BBC program through a Freedom of Information request, revealed that the hard drives contained much more.

“This data provides an excellent target list for foreign intelligence services, investigative journalists and blackmailers,” the memo said, adding that “if the information relating to the private lives of RAF personnel, especially of some very senior officers, enters the public domain, the reputation of the service will be tarnished. The vetting information would be likely to generate further interest and, due to the profile of some individuals, would likely grab front page status.”

See also:

• MI6 Nixed Major Undercover Operation After Memory Stick Lost

Full post as published by Threat Level on May 27, 2009 (boomark / email).