NSA Contractor Indicted Over Mammoth Theft of Classified Data (reuters.com)

Dustin Volz, reporting for Reuters: A former National Security Agency contractor was indicted on Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges he willfully retained national defense information, in what U.S. officials have said may have been the largest heist of classified government information in history. The indictment alleges that Harold Thomas Martin, 52, spent up to 20 years stealing highly sensitive government material from the U.S. intelligence community related to national defense, collecting a trove of secrets he hoarded at his home in Glen Burnie, Maryland. The government has not said what, if anything, Martin did with the stolen data. Martin faces 20 criminal counts, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison, the Justice Department said. "For as long as two decades, Harold Martin flagrantly abused the trust placed in him by the government," said U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein.

Comments

Took?

[DarthVain]

That is assuming he did it uniformly over a 20 year period, which is possible, but unlikely.

You would think they would have not only network but physical safeguards in place to prevent this. I see this as more damning of the NSA security procedure than anything else. Regardless of how you slice it, it is a massive amount of data to be able to go "unnoticed" for 20 years!

"Unnamed U.S. officials told the Washington Post this week that Martin allegedly took more than 75 percent of the hacking tools belonging to the NSA's tailored access operations, the agency's elite hacking unit."

Took? They don't have it anymore? Unnamed US officials could have better used the term "copied" I think (though not totally wrong I suppose).

Somehow I finished that sentence with, When reached for comment Martin said "the other 25% of the hacking tools were rubbish!" :p

Re:Took?

[Ogive17]

You would think they would have not only network but physical safeguards in place to prevent this. I see this as more damning of the NSA security procedure than anything else. Regardless of how you slice it, it is a massive amount of data to be able to go "unnoticed" for 20 years!

Sometimes when someone has worked in a certain area for 20 years, they are given more responsibility. Maybe this guy was suppose to be the safeguard? Not saying that is right way to handle sensitive information but I don't have the details.

Took? They don't have it anymore? Unnamed US officials could have better used the term "copied" I think (though not totally wrong I suppose).

Took is a completely acceptable term. He took the data with him. It doesn't say "stole" which would really cause a pedantic shit storm here on /.

My money is on ...

[CaptainDork]

... backup tapes.

Those are so easy to walk off with.

I'm retired IT, and many times when I was assisting on another site, I saw backup tapes and EHD, some old, laying around in plain site, some in drawers where tools and connectors were stored, so yeah.