From: William Knowles (wkC4I.ORG)
Date: Thu Feb 17 2000 - 01:20:06 CST

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000114832908976&rtmo=02xKsKGq&atmo=ggggg3JK&pg=/et/00/2/17/wspy17.html

(The Daily Telegraph) [2.17.00] The State Department faced its second
major security embarrassment in three months after admitting that it
had sent its embassies a piece of software written by citizens of the
former Soviet Union.

In December, the department conceded that it had found a sophisticated
listening device implanted in the walls of a conference room on what
is supposed to be the most secure part of the building. A Russian
diplomat was arrested and expelled after he was observed by the FBI
monitoring the device from outside.

The new security lapse occurred on Feb 2 when all American missions
and embassies around the world were sent an urgent cable telling them
to remove a piece of software from their mainframe computers.

The programme had been written by a company called Synergy
International Systems, which is based in Vienna, Virginia, but is
owned by Armenians. The company, whose website says it also has
offices in Moscow and Guatemala, says there is no security problem and
that they are confident an internal review by the FBI will clear them
of any suspicion.

So far, investigators have not found any evidence of malpractice. The
main fears are that the software could contain a hidden code that
could download sensitive information from embassy computers or install
bugs that could cause crashes in the system at critical moments.

Bonnie Cohen, a senior administrator at the State Department, was
quoted in the Washington Post yesterday as saying: "On the face of it,
from what we know so far, it's an extraordinary lapse of judgment."

The latest security scare follows the admission by the CIA that John
Deutch, a former director, took top secret files home and installed
them on his own computer, which he also used to look at the internet.

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