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Snowden Used Low Cost Web Crawler to Scrape Data From Systems
WASHINGTON Intelligence officials investigating how Edward J. Snowden gained access to a huge trove of the countrys most highly classified documents say they have determined that he used inexpensive and widely available software to scrape the National Security Agencys networks, and kept at it even after he was briefly challenged by agency officials.Using web crawler software designed to search, index and back up a website, Mr. Snowden scraped data out of our systems while he went about his day job, according to a senior intelligence official. We do not believe this was an individual sitting at a machine and downloading this much material in sequence, the official said. The process, he added, was quite automated. The findings are striking because the N.S.A.s mission includes protecting the nations most sensitive military and intelligence computer systems from cyberattacks, especially the sophisticated attacks that emanate from Russia and China. Mr. Snowdens insider attack, by contrast, was hardly sophisticated and should have been easily detected, investigators found. Posted by: Omavising Ebbemp9815 2014-02-10 |
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