US missile defence details bought on eBay

Top secret details of America’s missile defence system were found last week on the hard drive of a computer purchased on eBay.

Information on the hard drive included a document outlining test launch procedures, blueprints of government facilities, and photographs of employees together with their personal details, including social security numbers.

The leak was discovered by an international research team led by BT‘s Security Research Centre.

University researchers from the UK, Australia, and the US purchased used computers from Britain, America, Germany, France and Australia at computer auctions, computer fairs, and on eBay.

Over a third of the hard drives studied contained “either personal data that could be identified to an individual, or commerical data identifying a company or organisation.”

Encryption speciailist Credant Technologies said the data leaks found by the researchers are ‘extrememly worrying’.

In particular, the discovery of US military data was ‘a serious lapse of secuirty’.

“US government agencies – and, indeed, all government agencies worldwide – should have a policy of crushing hard drives once they have been removed from office PCs,” said Michael Callahan, Credant’s senior vice president.

“This isn’t a one-off situation – if we go back to April 2006, there was the well-publicised incident of a flash drive with US spy data being sold in an Afghan bazaar for just $40.

“The ensuing investigation into that incident revealed the fact that the data had been downloaded from an unencrypted hard drive.”

Lockheed Martin, who make the missile defense system in question, declined to comment on leaked hard drive.