Need US launch procedures? Head to ebay!
It’s not the terrorists we need to worry about, its the stupid and incompetent:
US missile data found on eBay hard drive
The launch procedures for a US military missile air defence system were found on a second-hand hard drive bought on eBay, researchers revealed today.
More than 300 hard disks were studied and researchers uncovered other sensitive information including bank account details, medical records, confidential business plans, financial company data, personal id numbers, and job descriptions.
The drives were bought from the UK, America, Germany, France and Australia through computer auctions, computer fairs and eBay.
The exercise was carried out by BT’s Security Research Centre in collaboration with the University of Glamorgan in Wales, Edith Cowan University in Australia and Longwood University in the US.
Perhaps most surprising was the discovery of a disk bought on eBay that revealed details of test launch procedures for the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) ground to air missile defence system, used to shoot down Scud missiles in Iraq.
The disk also contained security policies, blueprints of facilities and personal information on employees including social security numbers, belonging to technology company Lockheed Martin – who designed and built the system. </em>
Amazing.
