Computer experts have warned for years about the threat posed by disgruntled insiders and by poorly crafted security policies, which give too much access to confidential data. And there is nothing about WikiLeaks’ release of US diplomatic documents to suggest that the group can’t — or won’t — use the same methods to reveal the secrets of powerful corporations.
And as WikiLeaks claims it has incriminating documents from a major US bank, possibly Bank of America, there’s new urgency to addressing information security inside corporations and a reminder of its limits when confronted with a determined insider.
At risk are companies’ innermost secrets — e-mails, documents, databases and internal websites that are thought locked to the outside world. Companies create records of every decision they make, whether it’s rolling out new products, pursuing acquisitions, fighting legislation, foiling rivals or allowing executives to sell stock.
Meanwhile, a US cable leaked by WikiLeaks said Thursday Britain offered the United States a deal to keep stocks of cluster bombs on its territory despite London signing up to an international ban on the weapons.
The diplomatic note dated May 2009 also reveals the two powers agreed to keep the deal quiet to avoid “complicating” a debate over the ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in the British Parliament.
The United States has refused to sign up to the convention, which was prompted by concerns of the impact of the bombs on civilians. It came into force on August 1 this year.
The leaked cable says ministers urged the United States to move out all their stockpiles by a deadline of 2013.
But it said: “In answer to queries about the case-by-case temporary storage exception for specific missions.... (Foreign Office officials) confirmed that the concept was accepted at highest levels of the government, as that idea has been included in the draft letter from Minister Miliband to Secretary Clinton.”
It referred to the then Foreign Secretary David Miliband and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The leaked cable added that while all cluster munitions would have to be moved out after 2013, “any new cluster munitions the USG (Washington) wanted to bring to those sites after the treaty’s entry into force for the UK — either before or after 2013 — would require the temporary exception.”
This included any movement of cluster munitions from ships on the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
A senior Foreign Office official said it would be better if the final agreement on the proposal was kept quiet until the CCM was passed.
He was quoted as saying: “It would be better for the USG and HMG (Her Majesty’s Government) not to reach final agreement on this temporary agreement understanding until after the CCM ratification process is completed in Parliament, so that they can tell Parliamentarians that they have requested the USG to remove its cluster munitions by 2013, without complicating/muddying the debate by having to indicate that this request is open to exceptions.”
A spokesman for the Foreign Office denied any attempt to mislead lawmakers.
“We reject any allegation that the Foreign Office deliberately misled Parliament or failed in our obligation to inform Parliament,” he told The Guardian newspaper, which first published the WikiLeaks document.
Meanwhile, Julian Assange’s legal options narrowed Thursday as the WikiLeaks founder lost an appeal against a court order for his arrest and his British lawyer said authorities knew his precise location.
Sweden’s Supreme Court upheld a order to detain the 39-year-old Australian for questioning over allegations of rape and sexual molestation that could lead to his extradition. He has been out of the public eye for nearly a month, although attorney Mark Stephens insisted that authorities knew how to find him.
“Both the British and the Swedish authorities know how to contact him, and the security services know exactly where he is,” Stephens said.
Meanwhile, cables published to WikiLeaks’ website detailed alleged financial support for North Korea and terrorist affiliates by Austrian banks; an allegation by a Pakistani official that Russia “fully supports” Iran’s nuclear program; and a deeply unflattering assessment of Turkmenistan’s president.
Accused in Sweden of rape, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of unlawful coercion, Assange’s last public appearance was at a Geneva press conference on Nov. 5.
Swedish officials have alerted Interpol and issued a European arrest warrant in a bid to bring him back in for questioning. Stephens, Assange’s lawyer, said that the Swedish prosecution was riddled with irregularities and turning into an exercise in persecution.
Assange denies the charges, and Stephens has said they apparently stemmed from a “dispute over consensual, but unprotected sex.” It is unclear if or when police would act on Sweden’s demands. Police there acknowledged Thursday they would have to refile their European arrest warrant after British authorities asked for more details on the maximum penalties for all three crimes Assange is suspected of.
Scotland Yard refused to comment, as did the Serious and Organized Crime Agency, responsible for processing European arrest warrants for suspects in England — where The Guardian claims Assange is hiding out.
