At the center of the WikiLeaks controversy is U.S. Army Private First Class
Bradley Manning, the man suspected of having passed
the whistle-blower Website a massive collection of U.S.
embassy cables.
Manning has been in military custody for the past several months with
charges of transferring classified information to his personal
computer and passing it on to an unauthorized source hanging over his head. But
it was not monitoring software that exposed Manning; in fact it was an
informant, former hacker Adrian Lamo, who Manning allegedly bragged to via
instant message.
The situation underscores the problems surrounding access controls and
malicious insiders, and it has prompted the U.S. Office of Management and
memorandum (PDF)to the heads of the country’s executive departments
and agencies requiring them to review “the agency’s configuration of
classified government systems to ensure that users do not have broader access
than is necessary to do their jobs effectively, as well as implementation of
restrictions on usage of, and removable media capabilities from, classified
government computer networks.”
In a chat log between Lamo and Manning published by
Wired magazine, Manning reportedly wrote that he would come in with a CD
labeled “with something like ‘Lady Gaga’ … erase the music … then write a
compressed split file.”
For more, read the eWeek article: .