A police officer who worked for Europol exposed sensitive data about the security agency's investigations to the Internet.
The police agency of the European Union acknowledged the mistake before the broadcast of a Dutch documentary.
The TV show Zembla said he had found more than 700 pages of confidential files, including data on terrorism, on a hard drive connected to the network. The network drive was said not to be password protected.
Europol said it had launched an investigation into the matter.
“Aunque este caso se refiere a la información sensible de Europol que data de hace unos 10 years, Europol informó inmediatamente a los estados miembros afectados”, a spokesman for the legal agency said..
“A partir de hoy, there is no indication that an investigation has been jeopardized. Europol will continue to assess the impact of the data in question, junto con los Estados miembros interesados”.
A reporter from Zembla he told the BBC that found the documents through a service that specializes in finding IoT devices.
“Encontramos el disco en línea a través de un motor de búsqueda llamado Shodan“, said Vincent Verweij.
“Fuimos capaces de acceder de forma remota al disco a través de Internet. No necesitaba una contraseña”.
Zembla reported that the documents contained the names and phone numbers of hundreds of people associated with terrorism..
He added that they mostly date from 2006 to 2008 and includes investigations into the Madrid train bombings, the Hofstad Network – an Islamic terrorist network located in the Netherlands- and thwarted attacks on several flights.
In addition, Said, other investigations that had never been made public were revealed.
Europol confirmó que el funcionario había copiado los datos a una unidad personal en “clara contraposición” de sus normas.
The hard drive in question was one of the models Iomega of Lenovo. The Chinese company has said it is the responsibility of the owners to insure them.. Later models required a password to be set before use.
A counter-terrorism specialist said the apparent mistake could have serious consequences..
“Las organizaciones policiales nunca quieren revelar cuánto saben para evitar que los malos entiendan cómo la policía opera”, said Dr. Bibi van Ginkel, principal investigator of the Dutch Institute of International Relations.
“En momentos en que se necesita una mejor cooperación internacional y el intercambio de datos, esta filtración podría poner en peligro la confianza entre los estados”.
The revelation coincides with the announcement that the current director of Europol, Rob Wainwright, participate in a seminar held in London in January dedicated to data protection and online privacy.
Fountain: BBC