NSA system administrators targeted by foreign intelligence via false‑flag recruitment tactics

The NSA‘s Back Door | 211 eign intelligence services because of their special access to informa- tion.” Before the computerization of the NSA, the threat officer noted, code clerks and other low-level NSA communicators had been the targets of adversary intelligence services. But the increasing reli- ance on computer technicians presented foreign intelligence services with much richer targets. He predicted that they would adapt their recruiting to this new reality. Specifically, he argued that adversary intelligence services would now focus their attention on system administrators. “With system administrators,” he said, “the situa- tion is potentially much worse than it has ever been with communi- cators.” The reason, he explained, was that “system administrators can so easily, and quickly, steal vast quantities of information.” He further suggested that because system administrators are often drawn from the counterculture of hacking, they are more likely to be vulnerable to an adversary service using a fake identity for its approach, or a “false flag.” A “false flag” was a term originally applied to a pirate ship that temporarily hoisted any flag that would © allow it to gain proximity to its intended prey, but in modern times © it describes a technique employed by espionage services to surrepti- tiously lure a prospect. False flags were a staple used by the KGB in espionage recruitment during the Cold War. They were usually employed when a target for recruitment was not ideologically dis- posed to assisting the intelligence service. To overcome that problem, recruiters hide their true identities and adopt a more sympathetic, bogus one. In 1973, the KGB, working through one of its agents in the U.S. Navy, used the false flag of Israel to recruit Jerry Alfred Whitworth, who served as a communications officer with a top secret clearance for the navy. Like many other KGB recruits, Whitworth came from a broken family, dropped out of high school, took technical courses, and got a job as a communications officer. He was not disposed to working for Russia. But he was willing to steal enciphered and plain text cables to help in the defense of Israel. After he was thor- oughly compromised by his espionage work, he was told by the KGB recruiter that he was actually working for Russia, but by this time | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.indd 211 ® 9/30/16 8:13AM | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019699