Junior staff member accidentally leaks “Committee on Standards Weekly Summary Report” that details ongoing ethics panel investigations of 33 lawmakers.
People involved with sensitive govt information still just can’t seem to realize the importance of keeping it away from contact with file-sharing software.
Earlier this year it was reported how a US Defense contractor employee had inadvertently leaked classified military information about Marine One, President Barack Obama’s helicopter, by using a P2P program without realizing that it would allow outside access to top secret data.
Now comes word that a junior staff member of Congress accidentally leaked the 22-page “Committee on Standards Weekly Summary Report” that details ongoing ethics panel investigations of some 33 lawmakers a several staff members.
“Individual error and sloppiness is always the Trojan horse of cybersecurity,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, chairman of the ethics committee.
The staffer has since been fired, for House rules require that “employees must protect the confidentiality of sensitive information from disclosure to
unauthorized individuals or groups.”
It occurs as the House is still considering the Informed P2P User Act (HR 1319) that would “prevent the inadvertent disclosure of information on a computer through the use of certain `peer-to-peer’ file sharing software without first providing notice and obtaining consent from the owner or authorized user of the computer.”
The bill requires file-sharing programs to provide “clear and conspicuous notice of which files are to be made available to another computer.” It would also make it illegal to prevent the authorized user of a computer to block the installation of a P2P file-sharing program, disable or remove the program.
Too bad it wouldn’t prevent people from storing sensitive govt data on PCs installed with P2P software in the first place.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
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These people should be forced to encrypt sensitive data, that is the biggest issue at play.
Then what? Throw the encryption key into the p2p folder and claim stupidity?
Anything interesting in the document? Makes you wonder if it was really an accident.
http://freakbits.com/riaas-idiotic-response-to-p2p-leak-exposing-lawmakers-1031
According to the RIAA the incident was “evidence of a need for controls on peer-to-peer software to block the improper or illegal exchange of music.”
That’s right, because some junior staff member is stupid enough to put confidential documents in the shared folder of his filesharing client, access to P2P apps should be restricted.