The Pentagon's information and communications systems continue to look like a sieve. Three and a half months after the scandal of the leak on the networks of hundreds of secret papers by the 21-year-old aviator Jack Douglas Teixeira, arrested and imprisoned in April, another internal theft forces the Department of Defense to investigate what it calls a " critical compromise” of communications in 17 installations of its Air Force. The person investigated this time is a 48-year-old engineer who worked at the Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee, according to the search warrant, the content of which was published by Forbes.
The new breach within the US military was discovered when a contractor at that base informed the government that the engineer, whose identity had not been made public yesterday, had taken home $90,000 worth of Pentagon radio equipment.
But the cost of the material is not the most relevant here. The bottom line is that it is the communications technology used by the Air Training and Training Command (AETC): "One of the nine commands that provide offensive, defensive and support elements" to the Air Force headquarters.
Although the Government did not detail the extent and nature of the information obtained by the suspect, it is known that at the time of the operation in which he was discovered "he was running Motorola radio programming software that contained the entire communications system of the Arnold's basis. Investigators believe the employee was also able to access communications from the FBI and various Tennessee state agencies.
The defendant had a USB with "administrative passwords and electronic system keys" from the AETC radio network, as well as "radio programming files from local law enforcement." In some files that he handled, warnings appeared that they were reports owned by the Government or with the mark of "restricted confidential".
According to the court order, witnesses and co-workers said the guy "sold radio equipment, worked odd hours, was arrogant, lied a lot, had inappropriate behavior," including episodes of "sexual harassment," and suffered from financial problems. ”. In addition, a colleague had reported him twice in connection with “insider threats” and unauthorized possession of Air Force materiel. In short: a true gem about which, as in the Teixeira case, one wonders how it is possible that the system allowed him to go so far, taking into account everything that, apparently, was already known about him.
