A lack of security can have disastrous consequences for American departments. The Department of Energy is no exception as U.S. nuclear secrets are at risk of insider attacks, according to The Epoch Times. A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) includes new training from 2014 but notes that it has not been implemented yet.
Allison Bawden, a GAO director for nuclear security, took to Twitter to share her concerns. She likens the situation to Jurassic Park where an employee, a computer programmer, steals dinosaur embryos to improve his financial situation. She says that stealing classified information can also apply to nuclear secrets and claims that the DOE can protect itself if it trains all of its employees to report and monitor networks for suspicious activity.
The DOE has neglected to implement seven requirements of its Insider Threat Program, despite recommendations from independent reviewers for how the department can best do that, the report reads. The report continues to say that these risks, which may come from external or internal threats, can result in disastrous consequences for national security.
The concerns come as insider threats have already been an issue for the agency. Data from 2017, which is the most recent available, reportedly reveals that there were 250 unclassified threats that involved sending classified information over unclassified channels and security areas left unsupervised.
The Department of Justice has noted one instance where Grigory Trosman was imprisoned for 18 months following his acceptance of at least $460,000 in bribes. He allegedly accepted money from conspirators and companies looking to gain federal funding for Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine.
Another recent report published last year by Strider Technologies revealed that China has had its hand in hiring 162 researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) over the last three decades that went on to develop Chinese military technologies.
