A leak of secret documents from an air force base in Japan has occurred, affecting both the Japanese and the Americans. The information – now in unknown hands – concerns the location of military cargo supplies inside Iraq and Kuwait. Moreover, the laptop in question held assorted information on anti-terrorist and anti-missile exercises by the Japanese forces. InfoWatch experts point out that the incident could easily have been prevented, even without resorting to complex systems of protection against insiders and leaks.
The Japanese military allowed a leak of American secret documents to occur. The cause of the leak was nothing more interesting than the wrongful application of equipment, due to a soldier loading P2P-Net WinNY on his computer. The stolen information included a list of cargo supplies at military bases in Iraq and Kuwait as well as a list of the Japanese personnel themselves and information about anti-terrorist and anti-missile exercises and the military personnel who took part in the Iraq campaign.
At present, an investigation is underway at the Naha air force base, Japan, where the incident took place where the top brass are concerned by the increase of such incidents.
A Japanese air force spokesman said that the Americans were unlikely to suffer any losses on the ground due to the leak since their theater of operations had significantly changed. However, there is no doubt that the incident will negatively impact on the relations between the military forces of the two countries.
Denis Zenkin, InfoWatch’s Marketing Director said, “It is hard to believe the slapdash attitude in the Japanese army towards secret documents, especially since such a leak could have resulted not only in substantial material losses, but also in loss of life! It took just one case to seriously discredit the informational security of the Japanese military. It is likely that the Americans will be more careful in their dealings with the Japanese in the military arena as a result.”
Source: Mainichi Daily News
