Alarm over security blunder at Sydney airport

[rooboy]

The brazen airport computer theft that has Australia's anti-terror fighters up in armsOn the night of Wednesday, August 27, two men dressed as computer technicians and carrying tool bags entered the cargo processing and intelligence centre at Sydney International Airport.

The men, described as being of Pakistani-Indian-Arabic appearance, took a lift to the third floor of the Charles Ulm building in Link Road, next to the customs handling depot and the Qantas Jet Base.

They presented themselves to the security desk as technicians sent by Electronic Data Systems, the outsourced customs computer services provider which regularly sends people to work on computers after normal office hours.

After supplying false names and signatures, they were given access to the top-security mainframe room. They knew the room's location and no directions were needed.

Inside, they spent two hours disconnecting two computers, which they put on trolleys and wheeled out of the room, past the security desk, into the lift and out of the building.

The brazen theft has prompted Australia's top security agencies to conduct emergency damage audits amid fears that terrorists may have gained access to highly sensitive intelligence from the computers.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/04/1062548967124.html

[Hawkeye-X]

1. EDS is Repuke-owned

Why is this not a surprise?

[Pert_UK]

2. Holy......Fucking............Shit......................

Could this be any more ridiculous?

This is scarey - NOT a casual theft, a deliberate, difficult, planned theft of computer equipment used to help guard against terrorist attacks.

This is farsical - I used to work in IT for a Financial Services company. You couldn't get into our Data Centre / Mainframe area without written permission from a relevant manager, a good reason for being there, and you'd be supervised by data centre staff the whole time.

Oh, and we considered outsourcing to EDS but chose not to as they weren't very good, IIRC.

P.

[Ellen Forradalom]

3. VERY serious

Wow. I'm speechless.