Pentagon Farmed Out Its Coding to Russia

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/04/pentagon-farmed-out-its-coding-to-russia.html

By Patrick Malone
Center for Public Integrity
11.04.15

The Pentagon was tipped off in 2011 by a longtime Army contractor that 
Russian computer programmers were helping to write computer software for 
sensitive U.S. military communications systems, setting in motion a 
four-year federal investigation that ended this week with a 
multimillion-dollar fine against two firms involved in the work.

The contractor, John C. Kingsley, said in court documents filed in the 
case that he discovered the Russians’ role after he was appointed to run 
one of the firms in 2010. He said the software they wrote had made it 
possible for the Pentagon’s communications systems to be infected with 
viruses.

Greed drove the contractor to employ the Russian programmers, he said in 
his March 2011 complaint, which was sealed until late last week. He said 
they worked for one-third the rate that American programmers with the 
requisite security clearances could command. His accusations were denied 
by the firms that did the programming work.

“On at least one occasion, numerous viruses were loaded onto the DISA 
[Defense Information Systems Agency] network as a result of code written 
by the Russian programmers and installed on servers in the DISA secure 
system,” Kingsley said in his complaint, filed under the federal False 
Claims Act in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on March 18, 2011.

[...]

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