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Former NSA Chief Warned Against Selling NSA Secrets
An anonymous reader writes Former NSA Chief General Keith Alexander has apparently started his own cybersecurity consulting firm, IronNet Cybersecurity, and approached the banking industry pitching his company's suite of services. Word from Wired indicates that his services cost $1 million per month with a special discount asking price of $600,000 per month. Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) expressed concern about General Alexander's activities to the banking industry, stating, "I question how Mr. Alexander can provide any of the services he is offering unless he discloses or misuses classified information, including extremely sensitive sources and methods....Without the classified information he acquired in his former position, he literally would have nothing to offer to you." (PDF) The congressman from the House of Representatives reminds the bankers (and General Alexander, should he be listening) that selling top secret information is a federal offense.
Alexander's forte seems to be using brute force to break the security of others, not actually keeping an organization secure.
It sure is a good thing that the banking industry is a bunch of totally upstanding, honest, guys, steeped in a culture of prudent moderation, who definitely wouldn't have any interest in the potential applications of NSA-tested 'tailored access operations' for shareholder value, enhanced lobbying, and other exciting things; or the colossal hubris necessary to not even think twice about doing so.
Actually I'm going to disagree with you there. Yes, Snowden was a loss for the NSA, but not a fatal loss.
Gen. Alexander presided over and participated in an epic expansion of the NSA budget, mandate, and importance. They achieved the nirvana of government existence: To become a mover and shaker. The NSA now overshadows the CIA and FBI in importance.
The Snowden disclosures threaten that status, but notice that none of the limitations on the NSA have actually happened yet. Lots of talk but little action. The government likes it's pervy magic database of secrets and private communications. Sure it's constitutionally infringing but hey, terr'ists!!
And even if the golden age of spying winds up being curbed, Gen. Alexander can always find a way to blame someone else, or say "it' was one unfortunate mistake, lessons were learned, I wasn't properly informed, etc."