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Top Defense Contractor Left Sensitive Pentagon Files on Amazon Server With No Password (gizmodo.com)
Sensitive files linked to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency -- which works with the nation's intelligence agencies to analyze aerial data -- were apparently left on a public Amazon server by an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the nation's top defense contractors, reports Gizmodo. From the article: A cache of more than 60,000 files was discovered last week on a publicly accessible Amazon server, including passwords to a US government system containing sensitive information, and the security credentials of a lead senior engineer at Booz Allen Hamilton. What's more, the roughly 28GB of data contained at least a half dozen unencrypted passwords belonging to government contractors with Top Secret Facility Clearance. The exposed credentials could potentially grant their holders further access to repositories housing similarly sensitive government data. Countless references are made in the leaked files to the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which in March awarded Booz Allen an $86 million defense contract. Often referred to as the Pentagon's "mapmakers," the combat support agency works alongside the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Intelligence Agency to collect and analyze geospatial data gathered by spy satellites and aerial drones. The NGA on Tuesday confirmed the leak to Gizmodo while stressing that no classified information had been disclosed.
Refuse to allow Booz any new government contracts for their incompetence. (Won't happen)
Triangle. Congress critters control taxpayer money used by the military. The military uses private contractors in those congress critters' districts. Those private contractors control the money given to congress critters, thus completing the triangle.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Why do documents with plain-text user credentials exist ANYWHERE, for ANY REASON in the first place? Is the government (or at least the NGA) really that completely incompetent? This is shocking! I don't care that it was leaked. We need to assume that is ALWAYS going to happen. I care that such documents were ever created in the first place.
...quick question: did this numbskull ACTUALLY GET FIRED?
Because what I'm finding in our firm's dealing with government and contractors is that very, very few people are ever *actually* held accountable for fuckups.
And I'm talking about people from congresscritters and senior presidential staff on down.
-Styopa