Snowden social-engineered co-workers to share their passwords

The revelations stemming from the documents exfiltrated by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden have changed the way we look at many things, but the details that have been trickling out about the way he went about getting access to those documents have also shown us how serious the insider threat can be.

According to a report by Reuters based on disclosures from unnamed sources within the government, Snowden misused his status as a systems administrator to convince 20 to 25 NSA employees and his colleagues at the NSA regional operations center in Hawaii to hand over their login details for internal agency systems and networks.

It is reported that “a handful” of these employees have already been identified and questioned about it, then removed from their jobs – whether temporary or permanently is yet unknown.

SOURCE: net-security.org