Snowden impersonated NSA officials, sources say

[ProSense]

Snowden impersonated NSA officials, sources say

By Richard Esposito, Matthew Cole and Robert Windrem
NBC News

Edward Snowden accessed some secret national security documents by assuming the electronic identities of top NSA officials, said intelligence sources.

<...>

Snowden was a Honolulu-based employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, an NSA contractor. His job gave him system administrator privileges on the NSA’s intranet, NSAnet. He reportedly used his privileges to download 20,000 documents.

The NSA still doesn’t know exactly what Snowden took. But its forensic investigation has included trying to figure out which higher level officials Snowden impersonated online to access the most sensitive documents...According to one intelligence official, the NSA is restricting its research to a much smaller group of individuals with access to sensitive documents. Investigators are looking for discrepancies between the real world actions of an NSA employee and the online activities linked to that person’s computer user profile. For example, if an employee was on vacation while the on-line version of the employee was downloading a classified document, it might indicate that someone assumed the employee’s identity.

The NSA has already identified several instances where Snowden borrowed someone else’s user profile to access documents, said the official

- more -

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/29/20234171-snowden-impersonated-nsa-officials-sources-say

[uponit7771]

1. It's NOT about Snowden and his lying and stealing and treason and stupidity and utter

... naivete in regards to GreenWald.

Cause you know, there's no other way Obama couldv'e started this conversation about over reach other than starting the conversation about over reach.

SnowGlen = hero dammit!! /sarcasm <---cause this is needed around here

[MineralMan]

2. And that's the risk with sys admins access capabilities.

Snowden, apparently, deliberately did this. He didn't just "happen on" the documents he illegally copied and distributed.

I still doubt that he had the full access of those people to compartmented information.

[FarCenter]

15. But this means that they probably weren't using good two-factor authentication

Inexcusable to not use good hardware cryptographic tokens for authentication.

[MineralMan]

19. Actually, I'm sure they were, for sensitive, compartmented

material. The authentication may not have been required for access to things like briefing presentations, etc., which are all we've seen from Snowden so far. Biometrics are probably also involved these days for compartmented materials. The technology exists, and the NSA is about the technology in a serious way. Iris scans, most likely, or at least fingerprint scans.

Snowden's access would probably only have allowed him to get into stuff that only required general access. That's my take on it, anyhow. If more sensitive information had been available to him, I think we would have seen something at that level already.

I don't know, but given how the NSA worked when I was there, way back in the 60s, access was tightly controlled on several levels, and it was almost impossible for you to have access to anything you weren't specifically cleared for. I can't imagine that it's less well controlled now.

Briefing documents weren't at a very high level, really.

Here's an NSA document on the use of biometric authentication. They do a lot of work in that area and provide information to others on such subjects:

http://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/factsheets/I73-009R-007.pdf

[FarCenter]

23. I think that it is somewhat worse than that

For example, there appear to have been a very large number of people with access to the network that Manning harvested the documents from.

I also worked at a large organization, and I was somewhat amazed at the type and amount of information that I could access via the internal search engine. I was not a sys admin.

It appears that too much information now resides in networks with widespread access, poor compartmentalization, poor access controls, and inadequate logging.

If an organization doesn't want all employees to know that it is opening a location in country X, then it shouldn't put a management briefing with real estate transactions by country on a server that is crawled by the organization's search engine.

[Laelth]

3. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[ProSense]

5. These are pieces to a puzzle.

What is Russia's involvement?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023551970

[BeyondGeography]

4. Isn't that special?

What a weasel.

[GeorgeGist]

6. NSA security pretty much sucks.

[BeyondGeography]

7. What has been unveiled is another DC money making scheme more than anything else, imo

A Mark Leibovich "This Town" gravy train special. Quality of outcomes is a distant afterthought.

[grasswire]

27. yep

Racketeering.

Other such programs, designed to loot: War On Some Drugs, Prison Binge, Iraq.

[snooper2]

8. But I thought Snowy was a SUPER HACKER!

guess not LOL...

[MannyGoldstein]

9. If the NSA can't protect itself against obvious stuff

Then why should we trust them with anything whatsoever?

This whole thing is astonishing.

[KittyWampus]

11. I'm actually reminded a little bit of how Charles Dickens portrayed govt bureaucracies-

with a pinch of Kafka thrown in.

[MannyGoldstein]

13. Agreed. So why is the NSA administration still in place,

while the IRS head was fired in days for something he had zero to do with?

[KittyWampus]

17. irs= low hanging fruit.

[KittyWampus]

10. If it's that easy maybe the problem wasn't primarily Snowden. LOL!

[Rex]

30. I'm still wondering how that loser got to work for the CIA and NSA

with just a high school diploma. He just doesn't pass the smell test.

[KittyWampus]

34. someone posited he was caught hacking govt. computers and they "recruited" him.

Just pure conjecture.

[Segami]

31. LOL! +1

[dawg]

12. The NSA is incompetent and unable to protect the data it collects.

Is that the point you were trying to make? Because that is the point you made.

[LisaL]

14. Sounds about right to me.

They collect a huge amount of information on private citizens, and can not protect this information.

[randome]

18. They were unable to protect their internal office documents.

But apparently the personal data is well protected or else Snowden would have proof of his claims.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[dawg]

20. And you think they would protect *our* data better than their own?

That's cute.

[randome]

21. If Snowden had shown us one private email from a public official, this debate would be over.

No government agency -no corporation, for that matter- is one hundred percent secure. But if no one can get at the personal data, that's pretty strong evidence that it's well protected.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[dawg]

22. So you'll shut up if he does?

Commit right now!

[hobbit709]

16. And you believe what the NSA is saying, why?

[DesMoinesDem]

24. LOL at you only cutting out the second paragraph. I wonder what that paragraph says.

Oh, here it is

“Every day, they are learning how brilliant Snowden was,” said a former U.S. official with knowledge of the case. “This is why you don’t hire brilliant people for jobs like this. You hire smart people. Brilliant people get you in trouble.”

I wonder why you didn't include that paragraph.

[whatchamacallit]

42. The "art" of the propagandist

Good catch!

[Mojorabbit]

25. I see you are back from your holiday and ready to throw out cherry

picked portions of articles once again. Welcome back! It was quiet without you.

[DesMoinesDem]

37. No, you can tell she is still on vacation.

She has thrown up a few threads this week but isn't responding to the comments. When she is on the clock she responds to all the comments and always has to have the last word

[zipplewrath]

38. Congress isn't in session

It's when alot of pro's take a vacation.

[dkf]

26. Sounds like they are guessing...

They assume because the official was on vacation and someone accessed during that time that it was Snowden.

Funny.

[Rex]

28. Borrowed? Is that another way of saying 'he stole their identity'?

Why is this supposed nobody with a high school diploma, working at key positions in the CIA and then the NSA and also seems to have spy abilities we only see in the movies?

[dkf]

32. Isn't he amazing? I guess I'm supposed to feel like he is a weasel or whatever but I'm only more

And more Impressed.

[Rex]

33. Yes I think I need to change my tune too. He is evidently NOT a loser

and more like Jason Bourne, without the sniper skills. Or maybe WITH the sniper skills...seems nobody knows anything about him, except for the fact that he completely made the NSA look like the Keystone cops!

[dkf]

35. Trying to make him seem small and inadequate only makes them look worse.

In a way I am a little nervous to have him in Russia. He really should be here, free and doing something that utilizes his talents. It's a waste.

[jmowreader]

43. Who'd hire him?

Snowden is the guy who'd come in early on his second day, copy your Rolodex and price list, then quit and open a company doing what you do for ten percent less than you do it for.

[randome]

40. It doesn't take much talent to steal someone's password.

I still don't see evidence that Snowden was all that talented. He apparently didn't even understand what a secure FTP server was.

I think he got as far as he did because he came across as a demure 'good guy' and people gave him too much the benefit of a doubt.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[Rex]

41. I think he had help.

And we are not just talking about any old password here.

[VanillaRhapsody]

29. Oh they can trace it...

role based access....then they just proved Snowboy is a liar! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Mojorabbit]

39. .

[AtomicKitten]

36. The system sucks.

National security should not be outsourced particularly to private entities with such lax security standards. He should never have been able to access the data so freely and fraudulently. That doesn't bode well for him or the country.

[Recursion]

44. Umm.. yeah... "su -" is such a poorly understood command (nt)

[cherokeeprogressive]

45. Thereby proving the agency incompetent and unworthy of further support.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention!