B.C. students buy sensitive U.S. defence data for $40 in Africa

The Truth 10:04 pm on June 25, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
Tags: Ghana (3), Hard disk drive, Homeland Security Department, Northrop Grumman, Pentagon (11), U.S (325), United States (46), United States Department of Homeland Security

Data Security Fail. LOL.

From: cbc.ca

A hard drive containing information about multimillion-dollar U.S. defence contracts was obtained in Ghana by a group of Vancouver journalism students as they probed what happens to developed nations‘ discarded and donated electronics.

“It’s pretty shocking,” said Blake Sifton, one of three UBC graduate journalism students who purchased the device containing information related to contracts between the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and military contractor Northrop Grumman. The hard drive cost the students just $40.

“You’d think a security contractor that constantly deals with very secret proprietary information would probably want to wipe their drives,” Sifton said Tuesday.