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Obama's Marine One secrets in Iran?

U.S. President Barack Obama and family arrive from Chicago aboard Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House February 16, 2009. (Photo by Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images)

by Frank James

A Pittsburgh TV station is reporting that a computer file containing sensitive information about presidential helicopter Marine One's communications equipment and security features was accessed by a computer in Iran.

The weak link was evidently a Bethesda, Md. defense contractor with an employee who downloaded peer-to-peer file-sharing software onto a computer with the sensitive file, a major security mistake. The breach was discovered by a Pittsburgh-area Internet security company.

An excerpt of the WPXI.com story:

PITTSBURGH -- Target 11 has learned a Cranberry company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks discovered what it said is a potentially serious security breach involving President Barack Obama's helicopter.

Tiversa employees found engineering and communications information about Marine One at an IP address in Tehran, Iran.

Bob Boback, CEO of Tiversa, said, "We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One,which is the president's helicopter."

The company was able to trace the file back to its original source.

"What appears to be a defense contractor in Bethesda, MD had a file sharing program on one of their systems that also contained highly sensitive blueprints for Marine One," Boback said.

Tiversa also found sensitive financial information about the cost of the helicopter on that same computer.

Boback said someone from the company most likely downloaded a file-sharing program, typically used to exchange music, not realizing the potential problems.

"When downloading one of these file-sharing programs, you are effectively allowing others around the world to access your hard drive," Boback said.

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, an adviser to Tiversa, said, "We found where this information came from. We know exactly what computer it came from. I'm sure that person is embarrassed and may even lose their job, but we know where it came from and we know where it went."

This story will no doubt help Tiversa raise its profile and perhaps will boost its chances of getting new internet-security business.

Something we don't know is whether the U.S. was aware of this breach before Tiversa learned of it. U.S. intelligence agencies are presumably constantly probing the computers of foreign nations so it may be that this breach had already been discovered.

In any event, it's another reminder of how porous U.S. computer networks are since they're always at the mercy of the weakest links in the network which often are the humans.

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