Security Clearance Jobs Blog

The Defense Security Service (DSS) has released its annual unclassified report titled Targeting U.S. Technologies, A Trend Analysis of Reporting from Defense Industry, for Fiscal Year 2011 (FY11).  The 75-page document is an analysis of foreign collection efforts and espionage that targets U.S. technology, intellectual property, trade secrets and proprietary information.  It is an important report that should be reviewed by all members of industry to understand the importance of counter-espionage in your security efforts and for reporting suspicious contact efforts to appropriate agencies.

Read more about the report here.

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In case any of you security-cleared professionals needed a reminder: beware of bikini-clad avatars of good-looking women. Wired.com’s Danger Room reports of a social media user touting herself as a rocket scientist/defense expert and connecting with professionals across the security sector. With multiple social media accounts and a suspicious professional background it appears she may have been after more than just friends.

It’s a solid reminder that while there are many benefits to social media, everyone, and especially those in the national security business, needs to exercise a fair share of caution online.

It’s not the first time intelligence professionals have been in trouble for making poor choices online. Thomas Ryan, co-founder of Provide Security, made headlines last summer after revealing that a profile he’d created of a so-called cyber geek was really a fake. Robin Sage was her name, and she made over 300 connections online. Ryan retold the story at a recent event at the International Spy Museum entitled “Whose Watching Whom: Spying and Social Media.”

At the event Ryan outlined several tips for those looking to interact online, including suggesting separate accounts for personal and professional interactions as well as the simple need to be more vigilant in interacting online. Other recommendations include not posting personal information and while it shouldn’t need to be said, never share classified or sensitive information online.

It’s a reminder we take to heart at ClearanceJobs, and why we think it’s so important for cleared job seekers to be able to visit a secure, password protected site with vetted employers. When you visit ClearanceJobs you’re not just visiting another online network, you’re visiting a trusted network, who knows how important online security – and avoiding bikini clad avatars – are to the cleared community.

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IMPACT 2011 took place in Chantilly, Va. this week and while the event was off-the-record, it’s worth reporting the hot topics discussed in this gathering of security officers and experts. With hundreds of Facility Security Officers and Information System Security Officers in attendance the forum was a hot venue for information sharing and discussion of the current security landscape. The trends you’ll note in the agenda aren’t surprising, and spotlight the evolving digital landscape today’s security professionals face. Here are the highlights:

• Cybersecurity. Unless you’ve been living under a rock in the past several years it’s probably no surprise that cybersecurity is a watch word across the intelligence and security industries. Whether you adhere to the Defense Department argument of cyberspace as a warfighting domain, or are with the State Department camp looking to broaden Internet access in order to promote democracy, wars of the future will be waged along the Internet superhighway. Government and private industry are looking for cybersecurity professionals with the necessary skills to compete in this growing market.
• The mission matters. Security is a customer focused profession (and you thought it was all about defending networks and hunting down Russian spies….). Security experts have an important goal in keeping their communities safe, and the human component of any security position – even within the IT industry – is a powerful one. Several presentations focused on briefing skills and the importance of training and education. That’s certainly a trend we see with training and education related positions posted at ClearanceJobs.com.
• Progress has been made in the security clearance process…but it’s far from over. Representatives from the Defense Security Service (DSS), the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) and others highlighted the improvements made in efficiency and reciprocity, but were cautious not to toot their own horns too loudly. They acknowledged that more steps need to be taken to make the process clearer and easier for both applicants and the security officers with companies and within the government who facilitate applications.

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If you’re like me, you can find the security clearance process a little, shall we say, obtuse. (Case in point, I worked at the Pentagon for 6 months before they realized my secret clearance hadn’t been processed at my last duty station and I had to completely resubmit my paperwork. Opps).

So called “foreign entanglements” can be one of those obtuse areas – how much “outside activity” is too much, and what level of engagement abroad is enough to compromise your chances of obtaining a security clearance? Chances are you know to cancel that family vacation to North Korea, but what about those business trips to China?

Read the latest article at ClearanceJobs.com to find out how activities abroad may affect your security clearance and what mitigating factors will be considered: Could Activities Abroad Affect Your Security Clearance?

Have an example of activity abroad and how it affected your security clearance? Tell your story in the comments section.

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The U.S. State Department is investigating an employee with top-secret security clearance who government investigators say mishandled classified information related to national security, according to an article on FoxNews.com.

“Eugene Reginald Hopson, a 30-year veteran of the State Department, described as an information management officer, oversaw the handling and security of classified information in U.S. embassies.

He was stripped of his security clearance and ordered back to Washington in October after 12 years overseas when State Department special agents found he had unauthorized possession of classified materials, according to an affidavit filed in the case.

A January search of his household belongings yielded five U.S. diplomatic passports, one Bolivian passport and evidence of bank accounts in Honduras, Italy and the Cayman Islands, search warrants show.”

The article goes on to state that The State Department confirmed that an investigation is underway, however, no charges have been filed. There are two laws that he possibly violated, one prohibiting “unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents” and the other on “gross negligence”, allowing classified information to be removed from its “proper place of custody“.

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The AP reports:

The government accused Dongfan “Greg” Chung, a stress analyst with high-level clearance, of using his 30-year career at Boeing and Rockwell International to steal the documents. They said investigators found papers stacked throughout Chung’s house that included sensitive information about a booster rocket fueling system — documents that employees were ordered to lock away at the end of each day. They said Boeing invested $50 million in the technology over a five-year period.

In his ruling, Carney [the judge] wrote that the notion that Chung was merely a pack rat was “ludicrous” and said the evidence showed that he had been passing information to Chinese officials as a spy.

Chung worked for Rockwell until it was bought by Boeing in 1996. He stayed with the company until he was laid off in 2002, then was brought back a year later as a consultant. He was fired when the FBI began its investigation in 2006.

To no ones surprise, China has denied any involvement.   It’s worth noting that this case came about while investigators were looking into another suspected Chinese spy.

Of course, this is just one way to spy – another, bigger,  growing problem exists.

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The FBI released a statement and politico reported that a former FBI contract linguist pleaded guilty to unlawfully providing classified documents to the host of an Internet blog who then published information derived from those documents on the blog.

Shamai Kedem Leibowitz, a.k.a., Samuel Shamai Leibowitz, 39, of Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded guilty in federal court to a one-count information charging him with knowingly and willfully disclosing to an unauthorized person five FBI documents classified at the “Secret” level that contained classified information concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States.  Under the plea agreement, the government and Leibowitz have agreed that a term of 20 months imprisonment is the appropriate sentence in this case.

From January 2009 through August 2009, Leibowitz was employed by the FBI as a contract linguist in an office in Calverton, Maryland.  Leibowitz held a Top Secret security clearance and is an Israeli American dual citizen. More from Politico…

“After news of the charges against him broke, it took reporters only minutes to track down news articles reporting that Leibowitz was fired from a legal clerkship in Israel and was publicly chastised by an Israeli Supreme Court justice for leaking a judge’s private comments…

Experts were also puzzled that someone with a long history of public activism on polarizing issues would wind up working for U.S. law enforcement in a classified environment and be granted access to sensitive information…

Some lawyers said the top-secret clearance awarded to Leibowitz, who describes himself as an Israeli-American, was particularly puzzling because Americans who are also Israeli citizens frequently face clearance denials and delays because of concerns they might harbor an allegiance to Israel.”

The FBI said it would look at whether the clearance process was handled properly.

Does this signal a breakdown in the security clearance process?

Related Article: Dual Citizenship And Security Clearances, Foreign Influence and Security Clearances

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Secretary Gates said the “freedom of communication and the nature of it is a huge strategic asset for the United States…there are clearly a number of governments, around the world, that try to control these communications…but these governments “can’t draw the net tight enough to stop everything”…

However, the DOD also warns against the dark side of social networking as well. The problem is not so much people twittering away secrets as letting slip many smaller pieces of information that an adversary can piece together.

Where’s the middle ground? What precautions do you take?

Update:  Just today, a Washington Post article points out that even the super-secret National Security Agency is on Facebook.  Not only the NSA, but the CIA, FBI, and DIA.

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An April 27, 2008 Los Angeles Times article reported on a new study, released in March, by the Pentagon’s little-known Defense Personnel Security Research Center, which examined the changing nature of espionage from 1947 to 2007.

. . . the biggest change in espionage is in the motivation to commit the act in the first place. The multinational, globalized spy of 2008 is less tempted by money than by ideology and “divided loyalty, loyalty to both the U.S. and another country” with 57% spying solely as a result of divided loyalties.

The study also reported that:

While before 1990, roughly 80% of American spies were native-born citizens, since 1990 the percentage of native-born offenders has fallen to 65%, while the corresponding percentage of naturalized citizens rose to 35%. Also since 1990, the percentage of American spies with foreign attachments (relatives or close friends overseas) increased to 58% and those with foreign business or professional connections jumped to 50%. From less than 10% before 1990 who had cultural ties to foreign countries, that percentage with foreign cultural ties increased to 50%.

Your thoughts?

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This is an odd story, but apparently 100% true. Those pesky Canadians have been slipping coins with tiny radio transmitters hidden inside in the pants of U.S. contractors visiting the country. I’m not entirely sure how contractors would be singled out specifically, but that’s beside the point. The Defense Security Service issued the warning yesterday.

On three occasions between October 2005 and January 2006, U.S. defense contractors with security clearance travelling in Canada were targeted. Naturally, the Canadian intelligence agency claims they have no knowledge of the coins.

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