Classified Anti-Missile System Details Found on Used Hard Drive
May 7th, 2009Via: Guardian:
Highly sensitive details of a key US missile defence system have been found on the hard drive of a computer that was disposed of in California.
The information about defence contractor Lockheed Martin included a document detailing test launch procedures, blueprints of facilities and photos and personal daat about employees – including their social security numbers.
Access to such data could allow identity theft or industrial espionage against Lockheed Martin, which is working on the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system – a project begun under president Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” Strategic Defence Initiative in the 1980s.
The computer, which has been turned over to the FBI, was bought online as part of a global research project conducted by three universities – Longwood University in the US, Glamorgan University in the UK and Edith Cowan University in Australia – along with BT and Sims Recycling Solutions.
The annual hard drive survey, now in its fourth year, is designed to bring to public attention the risk to personal data posed by carelessly discarded computer equipment which often contains huge amounts of personal and commercial data. The universities involved in the study use techniques and tools that are readily available from the internet and can be used by someone with a basic knowledge of technology to recover the data left on the drives, often this is not necessary as many are not even wiped.
One of the men who analysed the drive – Glenn Dardick, assistant professor of information systems at Longwood University in Virginia – described it as “manna from heaven to hackers”. He said: “If this is out there, then it does beg the question: what else is out there?”
