Snowden may have persuaded 20 to 25 NSA colleagues to give up their passwords

Anonymous sources speaking to Reuters said late Thursday that Edward Snowden was able to collect all the material that he’s been leaking over the past few months by convincing “20 to 25” of his coworkers to hand over their login credentials and passwords.

Snowden, the former NSA contractor who was stationed in Hawaii before escaping to Hong Kong and then Russia after he disclosed confidential information, used his coworkers’ logins to access at least some of the documents that have drawn international attention to the nefarious activities of the spy agency he worked for.

The employees who allegedly gave Snowden their login information “were identified, questioned, and removed from their assignments,” according to Reuters, quoting “a source close to several US government investigations into the damage caused by the leaks.” Snowden apparently told his fellow employees that the credentials “were needed for him to do his job as a computer systems administrator.”

SOURCE: arstechnica.com