Prosecutors Detail What May Be NSA’s Worst-Ever Security Breach

Source: The Cable | October 20, 2016 | Elias Groll

When the FBI announced earlier this month it had arrested NSA contractor Harold Martin, it was clear the American signals intelligence agency had suffered a huge breach of internal security. But no one imagined the staggering amount of information Martin allegedly amassed in his suburban Maryland home: a digital archive that may reach 500 million pages, much of it secret.

In a 12-page filing on Thursday, federal prosecutors presented their most detailed accounting so far of the classified material Martin allegedly accumulated over a two-decade career in government. It includes “specific operational plans against a known enemy of the United States” distributed on a “need to know basis” and “notes describing the NSA’s classified computer infrastructure” and operations.

If convicted for his actions, Martin’s home archive may constitute the largest archive of mishandled classified information in U.S. history. Prosecutors revealed on Thursday that they plan to charge him under the Espionage Act. Prosecutors are likely to seek a stiff prison sentence, but it remains unclear which specific charges Martin will face.

“The sheer volume of the programs he could compromise is staggering,” said Dave Aitel, a former NSA research scientist and the CEO of Immunity, Inc., a computer security company.

Prosecutors are still wondering why Martin allegedly did it. They have offered no evidence that he had shared, or planned to share, the material with others, such as a foreign intelligence agency. Yet he allegedly had a stash of guns and advanced encryption tools, and communicated online in different languages, including Russian. Investigators found hand-written notes explaining the basics of cyber tradecraft on the back of top-secret printouts just lying around Martin’s car.

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