Monday, October 19, 2009

Doofus Of The Day #280


Today's award is presented to the individuals and (possibly) teams involved in information security at Britain's Ministry of Defense.

A Ministry of Defence document advising staff how to stop documents leaking onto the internet has been leaked onto the internet.

The Defence Manual of Security is intended to help MoD, armed forces and intelligence personnel maintain information security, reports the Daily Telegraph.

But the 2,400-page restricted document has found its way on to Wikileaks, a website that publishes anonymous leaks of sensitive information.

The Joint Services Protocol 440 (JSP 440) was published in 2001 and is used as justification for the monitoring of certain websites, including Wikileaks.

It says: "Leaks usually take the form of reports in the public media which appear to involve the unauthorised disclosure of official information (whether protectively marked or not) that causes political harm or embarrassment to either the UK Government or the Department concerned..."

The document is particularly keen to avoid the attentions of journalists, noting them as "threats" alongside foreign intelligence services, criminals, terrorist groups and disaffected staff.

As far as traditional espionage and intelligence threats go, the document singles out the Chinese as having "a voracious appetite for all kinds of information; political, military, commercial, scientific and technical".


There's more at the link.

How embarrassing is that? Your super-secret instructions on how to prevent information leaking onto the Internet . . . are themselves leaked onto the Internet!



Peter

2 comments:

Brian Dale said...

The first thing that acme to mind as I read this was, "We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those
responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked." ~MP&THG

Back to the point: it had to happen.

Anonymous said...

Don't worry, they will get someone else to write all new procedures at the last minute at great expense.

MechAg94 the Wonder Llama