FBI Report: Lax Technology Security Aided Hanssen

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,49430,00.html

Wednesday, April 03, 2002
By Carl Cameron

WASHINGTON - The FBI is expected this week to issue a scathing report 
on security problems discovered during an internal review of the 
Robert Hanssen spy case. 

The report, to be delivered to Attorney General John Ashcroft by
Friday, concludes after extensive debriefings with Hanssen that the
FBI suffers from lax attention to technology and document security and
has numerous management problems, sources familiar with the report
told Fox News.

Former CIA Director William Webster, who is also a former head of the
FBI, conducted the far-reaching review, and is expected to testify
before the Senate Judiciary Committee next Tuesday.

Robert Hanssen was an FBI agent for 25 years, at times highly involved
in counterintelligence operations, before being arrested as a spy for
the Soviet Union and Russia. Last July, he pleaded guilty to nearly
two dozen charges of selling U.S. secrets to the Moscow over 20 years.

Hanssen has nonetheless been sparring with his debriefers for months,
and transcripts of the interviews reveal that his knowledge of
top-secret FBI and CIA operations went well beyond his own "need to
know" status, sources said.

Sources said Hanssen appeared to "play with his debriefers" and often
sought to impress them with the vast amount of intelligence he claims
to have compromised. Hanssen met with Webster's team four times over
the last year.

Sources familiar with the Webster report say it will state that:

* the FBI has failed to resolve long standing internal security
  concerns;

* FBI computers, networks and encryption standards are outdated and 
  vulnerable to compromise; 

* FBI records storage and security is inadequate and vulnerable to 
  compromise; 

* FBI management and command and control operations are outdated and 
  malfunctioning; and 

* FBI morale in the field and management communications are faltering. 

In October, Fox News was first to report that Hanssen had stolen
top-secret U.S. law-enforcement software applications, as well as
handbooks for the Community Online Intelligence Network, used by
investigators to access various law-enforcement databases.

Hanssen sold the COIN applications to the Russians, and U.S.  
intelligence believes that the software was in turn provided to Al
Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden by Russian organized-crime figures.

Government officials say the software may enable bin Laden to track
the international investigation of terror assets and keep his money
from being seized.

The United States is not the only nation to use the COIN software.



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