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Anonymous Releases 400 MB of FBI Contractor Data

Posted by Soulskill on from the another-day-another-breach dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Anonymous, as they have claimed they would, finally released 400 megabytes of files (NSFW language) allegedly stolen from ManTech, a cyber security firm contracted by the FBI. Anonymous stated, 'The FBI is outsourcing cybersecurity to the tune of nearly $100 million to a Washington-area managed services company. The deal shows a willingness in the federal government to place IT services more and more in the hands of third parties as agencies don't have enough staff on hand to do the job.'"

19 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. No surprise by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well that's embarrassing. Not entirely surprising, and not a big deal to be honest, but yet again we have it demonstrated that short of being physically disconnected from the internet and placed in a lead lined box there's no such thing as 100% security. If you want secure, don't put it on a computer and certainly don't plug the computer into the interwebs.

    (Disclaimer: No, that's still not 100% secure.)

    --
    Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
    1. Re:No surprise by Pieroxy · · Score: 2

      The problem is that putting stuff in the hands of third parties is in my view the equivalent of saying "I don't care about it." The problem with that is that IT is at the heart of everything now. If you don't care about it, that's a problem. A big one.

      Of course, that's not just true for government.

      --
      Write boring code, not shiny code!
    2. Re:No surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      But...but it's a contractor. They always know more about, well, EVERYTHING than dumb, stupid government employees who just sit around on my dime and do nothing productive. I'll bet contractors even use THE CLOUD and other really secure mysterious high-tech stuff like that which government people, who might even (gasp!) belong to a union have no clue about. That's what Fox News tells me, anyway.

  2. We have these already, and they have a function by Kagura · · Score: 4, Funny

    "a cyber security firm contracted by the FBI. . . . more and more in the hands of third parties as agencies don't have enough staff on hand to do the job."

    No crap, you idiots. They're called contractors!

    1. Re:We have these already, and they have a function by anegg · · Score: 2

      Government used to pay less than private industry... now it pays about the same, but with better benefits and job security, at least in the Washington, DC area. That started back when the government said they had to raise salaries in order to "remain competitive" with private industry. They raised the salaries, but kept the excellent benefits and the government union derived job lock-ins. The whole scene is a real mess. A shell of government employees filled with large amounts of creamy contractor filling. [Disclosure: I lived in the DC area and worked for government contractors at a variety of federal agencies for the last 15 years.]

  3. Default by kc9jud · · Score: 2

    I'm pretty sure that the government shutting down on Tuesday isn't going to help this at all. :P

    1. Re:Default by KiloByte · · Score: 4, Interesting

      To the contrary. Nothing in this data is really interesting, except for the fact that the FBI is paying mountains of taxpayers' money to their friends for basically nothing. What AnonSec proved here (yet again) is that these "security contractors" have nothing to do with security.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  4. But they're Cyber Contractors! by todrules · · Score: 3, Funny
    But they used the word cyber on their website 3 times describing their mission! They must be good!

    Mission and Cyber Support

    We tackle some of the most challenging cyber security problems facing our nation, including identifying and neutralizing external cyber attacks, managing security operations centers (SOCs), developing robust insider threat detection programs, and creating enterprise vulnerability management programs.

    1. Re:But they're Cyber Contractors! by mmcuh · · Score: 2

      Ironically, the word "cybernetic", the original use of the cyber- prefix in English, comes from the Greek ÎÏ...ÎÎÏνÎÏÎÎÏOEÏ (kybernetikos) meaning "skilled in governing".

    2. Re:But they're Cyber Contractors! by rbrausse · · Score: 2

      not only Cyber but they use in the Excel sheets Comic Sans as default font.

      They are so professional!

  5. i would download it, but... by FudRucker · · Score: 2

    i wont want a knock on my door, or have it kicked in by a government goon squad, i will wait until someone else downloads sorts through it for all the best parts and read about it on some conspiracy nut's website :)

    --
    Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
  6. Will this lead me to... by kenh · · Score: 3, Funny

    Neil Caffery, the White Collar crimes consultant that works with the FBI?

    --
    Ken
  7. send in mulder and scully by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

    and then you can find out the real FBI is like.

  8. ManTech's Friend by poena.dare · · Score: 2

    Apparently ManTech and HBGary work together ( http://publicintelligence.net/hbgary-mantech-internet-and-social-media-reconnaissance-presentation/ ), so this could be more fallout from the HBGary/Aaron Barr/Anonymous story.

    WHICH, as a matter of fact, I just wrote a small journal article about (sorry to shill, but I really think it's relevant!) http://slashdot.org/journal/269108/Aaron-Barr-amp-The-Jester

    One day the complete Anonymous story is going to make a great book and several bad movies.

  9. Which gets back to the core problem. by khasim · · Score: 2

    They're outsourcing the IT department ... which leaves them with no one in-house capable of verifying that the outsourcing service is competent or even following data-security processes.

  10. Over a decade in the making by BenEnglishAtHome · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Start with the "Re-Inventing Government" initiative under Gore during the Clinton administration, where some idiot decided that government should be run "more like a business." (Protip - Anytime someone says "Government should be run more like a business" you've just received perfect proof they're an idiot. Govt and business aren't the same and cannot/should not be run the same way.)

    Add 8 years of "We hate government. We hate government workers. Government is incompetent at everything it does and, by the way, too-often prevents us from funneling contracts to the big-money corps that help us get elected." under the Bush administration.

    Stir in the fact that IT is in the middle of everything nowadays.

    Bake a while and what do you get? Everything being outsourced, even to people who have no idea what they're doing and don't give two shits about the concept of "public service."

    A couple of months ago, I retired from a once-wonderful IT position with a major U.S. three-letter-agency. I just couldn't stand the whole "Do more with less. Don't worry about all the new, critical changes; they'll be admin'd by contractors, anyway. Bump the efficiency metrics; forget about actually keeping the field guys functioning."

    For the first 20 years I was there, we were allowed to do good work, help officers and agents do their jobs, and serve the public. Over the last 10 years, that whole notion of public service got lost in an orgy of fiefdom creation and repayment of favors.

    U.S. govt IT is going to hell. It's happening slowly but, I fear, inexorably.

    1. Re:Over a decade in the making by gl4ss · · Score: 2

      Fake efficiency.

      that's the scourge of modern way business way of handling things. as things are just bits and bytes, it's easy to lie about the efficiency without anyone noticing and starting to bitch, as the metrics can be chosen and created accordingly, showing advancement even when nothing is being actually done. when holding meetings become checkpoints on the project instead of working pieces solutions. multiple sourcing does nothing to help it, then just that someone thinks for 6 months which company might get the job becomes a checkpoint. it's the new IT-bubble, the illusion that things are expensive. they're not, the guys who are left to implement the things still don't get much of the money - it's just the middle layers and their processes which eat up the money, it wouldn't be SO bad if specifications and what the system is supposed to do wouldn't get lost in that same process - so the guys implementing don't even know what's it supposed to do and the timetable with which they have to work ends up being so tight they don't have a time for rewrite after they've designed what the system should do- because it took so long for the process to even choose these guys who implement things that they're late already when they arrive to work on the first day.

      I really wish IT was more like in late '80s, too bad I was too young to work then. now everyone wants people to spend their time on metrics which tell nothing of what was done or what should be done next.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  11. Learn some history, please by BenEnglishAtHome · · Score: 2

    No. I'm a very old-timer, one of the few remaining covered under the old Civil Service Retirement System. 100% of my pension is funded by participant contributions.

    Additionally, I will never receive Social Security retirement benefits nor will I get govt-subsidized medical care, though my private group insurance payouts will be limited to Medicare rates, thus making me a far less attractive customer to healthcare providers once I get old.

    People who think U.S. govt retirees are a budget problem or parasites or being paid for by the poor, put-upon taxpayers of today simply don't understand how the system works.

    If you want to find screwed up govt employee retirement setups, you need to look to state, county, and city governments. The fed got its act together and solved all those problems for its own people over 25 years ago.

  12. NO by novar21 · · Score: 2

    - NO. State Employees get a 401K. There is no pension or healthcare. It has been proven over and over, that contracting in this state costs more.