United States government security breaches

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This page is a time-line of published security lapses in the United States government. These lapses are frequently referenced in congressional and non-governmental oversight. This article does not attempt to capture security vulnerabilities.

Contents

[edit] Timeline

[edit] 1950s

  • 1951 - Theodore Hall was interviewed by the FBI for handing atomic weapons secrets to the Soviet Union. He was not prosecuted, but later admitted to giving secrets to the Soviet Union.

[edit] 1980s

  • August 1988 - Clyde Lee Conrad, a member of the United States military was arrested for selling NATO defense plans to Hungary from 1974 to 1988. He was convicted by a German court of treason and espionage in 1990 and died in prison.

[edit] 1990s

  • June 1990 - Ronald Hoffman was arrested for selling classified software that he developed for Science Applications International Corporation under a contract for the United States Air Force to foreign companies. He was convicted in 1992 of violations of the Arms Export Control Act and the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act and was sentenced to 30 months in prison.[1]
  • February 1991 - Charles Lee Francis Anzalone, a Corporal in the United States Marines was arrested for attempted espionage for passing documents and a security badge to an FBI agent posing as a KGB intelligence officer. He was convicted in May and sentenced to 15 years in prison for this and other charges.[1]
  • April 1991 - Jeffrey M. Carney was arrested for providing classified documents to the East German government between 1982 and 1984, while stationed in Berlin with the United States Air Force. He deserted defected to East Germany in 1985. He pleaded guilty to espionage, conspiracy, and desertion and was sentenced to 38 years in prison, but was released after 11 years.[1]
  • March 1991 - Albert T. Sombolay was arrested and admitted to providing military information regarding the Desert Shield deployment, military identification cards, and chemical weapons equipment to Jordan, while he was stationed in Germany. He was a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Zaire. He was sentenced to 34 years of hard labor.[1]
  • February 1993 - Frederick Christopher Hamilton pleaded guilty to passing Secret intelligence reports regarding Peru to Ecuador in 1991 while stationed in Peru with the Defense Intelligence Agency. He pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawfully communicating classified information to a foreign country and was sentenced to 37 months in prison.[1]
  • August 1993 - Geneva Jones was indicted for theft of government property and transmission of defense information to unauthorized persons. While a secretary in with the State Department, she passed classified documents to a West African journalist friend Dominic Ntube, who then passed some of them to Liberian rebels. In 1994, she pleaded guilty to 21 counts of theft and 2 counts of unlawful communication of national defense information. She was sentenced to 37 months in prison.[1]
  • May 1993 - Steven John Lalas was charged with passing sensitive military information to Greece between 1991 and 1993, while working for the State Department. He passed hundreds of highly classified documents between 1991 and 1993. He was of Greek descent, but was born in the United States. In June, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and was sentenced to 14 years in prison.[1]
  • February 1994 - Aldrich Hazen Ames was charged with providing highly classified information since 1985 to the Soviet Union and then Russia. The information he passed led to the execution of at least 9 United States agents in Russia. In April, he and his wife pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit espionage and to evading taxes. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.[1]
  • May 1995 - John Douglas Charlton was arrested and indicted for 10 counts of attempting to sell Secret United States Navy documents in 1993. He took the document from Lockheed Corporation before his retirement in 1989. In 1996, he pleaded guilty to 2 counts of attempted transfer of defense information. He was sentenced to two years in prison, without parole, followed by 5 years of probation.[1]
  • April 1996 - Kurt G. Lessenthien, a petty officer in the United States Navy was charged with attempted espionage for offering Top Secret submarine information to the Soviet Union. As part of a plea agreement, he was sentenced to 27 years in military prison.[1]
  • December 1996 - Earl Edwin Pitts was charged with providing Top Secret documents to the Soviet Union and then Russia from 1987 until 1992. In 1997, he pleaded guilty to two counts of espionage ans was sentenced to 27 years in prison.[1]

[edit] 2000s

  • April 2000 - Timothy Steven Smith was charged with espionage after being caught stealing disks and five Confidential documents from a ship in the Pacific Fleet. He pleaded guilty to stealing government property and assaulting an officer and was convicted to 260 days in prison, including time served.[1]
  • June 2000 - George Trofimoff, a naturalized citizen of Russian parents, was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union and Russia since about 1969. Having retired as a colonel in the United States Army Reserve, he was the highest ranking military officer ever accused of spying. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.[1]
  • September 2001 - Ana Belen Montes, a senior intelligence analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency passed classified military and intelligence information to Cuba for at least 16 years. She pleaded guilty and received a reduced sentence of 25 years in prison and 5 years of probation.[1]
  • 2002 - The Department of Justice Inspector General reported that 212 functional weapons, 142 inoperable training weapons, and 317 laptop computers were lost, missing, or stolen during a 28-month review period.[3]
  • March 2003 - 18 year-old Adil Yahya Zakaria Shakour breached network security at Sandia National Laboratories and defaced an Eglin Air Force Base web site. Shakour is a Pakistani citizen living in the Untied States. He pleaded guilty to computer and credit card fraud charges.[4]
  • April 2003 - A security officer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory loses an electronic access badge. The loss is reported to an immediate supervisor. Senior Livermore managers are not notified until late May, at which point the badge was deactivated.[5]
  • February 2004 - Ryan Gilbert Anderson, a member of the Washington National Guard was charged with 5 counts of attempting to provide aid and information to Al Qaeda. A court martial sentenced him to life in prison.[1]
  • 16 July 2004 - Sandia National Laboratories announced that they had located a classified floppy disk that had been discovered missing on June 30 during a routine inventory. It was missing because it was improperly transferred to a different organization at the lab.[6]
  • October 2006 - A drug-related investigation at a private residence found classified documents and a thumb drive containing classified information, all from Los Alamos National Laboratory, at the home of Jessica Quintana, a former subcontractor to the laboratory.[7]
  • February 2007 - The Department of Justice Inspector General reported that "over a 44-month period the FBI reported 160 weapons and 160 laptop computers as lost or stolen."[3]


[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa Defense Personnel Security Research Center, Espionage Cases 1975-2004
  2. ^ L. Britt Snider & Daniel S. Seikaly (2000-2-18), Improper Handling of Classified Information by John M. Deutch, Central Intelligence Agency Inspector General
  3. ^ a b U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Audit Division (2007-2), The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Control Over Weapons and Laptop Computers Follow-up Audit
  4. ^ 2003-3-14, "Man Pleads Guilty to Sandia National Labs Breach", SANS Newsbites 5 (11), The SANS™ Institute
  5. ^ a b 2003-6-6, "DOE REVIEWS LIVERMORE LAB: SECURITY UNACCEPTABLE", HPCwire 12 (22), Tabor Communications
  6. ^ Sandia Corporation (2004-7-16), Sandia Labs locates floppy disk
  7. ^ U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Inspector General, Office of Audit Services (2006-11-27), Selected Controls over Classified Information at Los Alamos National Laboratory
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