- Joe Tidy and Benedict Garman
- BBC correspondent
image source,MBDA Missile Systems
The company “MBDA Missile Systems” is one of the largest weapons manufacturers in the world.
Nato is assessing the impact of a breach of data on classified military documents sold online by a hacking group.
The data includes blueprints of weapons used by NATO allies in the Ukraine conflict.
Criminal hackers are selling the files after stealing data linked to a major European weapons manufacturer.
MBDA Missile Systems acknowledged that the files contained data from the company, but claimed that none of the classified documents belonged to the company.
The France-based pan-European company said its information was stolen from a compromised external hard drive, adding that the data breach took place in Italy and it was cooperating with Italian authorities.
It is understood that the investigation mainly revolves around a supplier of MBDA.
“We are evaluating allegations related to data allegedly stolen from MBDA. We have no indication that any NATO networks have been compromised,” a NATO spokesman said in a statement.
Cybercriminals operating on Russian and English-language forums are selling 80GB of stolen data for 15 bitcoins (around £18,000) and claim to have so far sold the stash to at least one unknown buyer .
image source,MBDA Missile Systems
A stolen folder contained detailed drawings of MBDA equipment, but the company said the material was not sensitive data.
In their advertisement for the stolen data, the hackers claimed to have “confidential information of employees of companies involved in the development of closed military projects” as well as “design documents, drawings, presentations, video and photographic materials, contractual agreements and communications with other companies. communication”.
The free 50MB data sample seen by BBC reporters included files marked ‘NATO CONFIDENTIAL’, ‘NATO RESTRICTED’ and ‘Unclassified Controlled Information’.
In addition to the samples, the criminals provided other documents via email, including two marked “NATO SECRET.”
NATO’s classification levels are:
- Cosmic Top Secret: Unauthorized Disclosures Will Do Unusually Serious Damage to NATO
- NATO Confidential: Unauthorized disclosures will cause serious damage to NATO
- NATO secrets: Unauthorized disclosure will harm NATO interests
- NATO Restrictions: Unauthorized Disclosures Will Work Against NATO Interests
- Non-Confidential Controlled Information is a security label for information created or owned by the U.S. government; information that requires protection or dissemination control in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and government-wide policies
The hackers were reluctant to confirm whether the material came from multiple sources that were stolen by the hackers.
The BBC was unable to independently verify the documents. The document details a “comms intelligence” mission carried out by a US Air Force squadron over the Baltic Sea in Estonia in late 2020.
The file included call records, full names, phone numbers and GPS coordinates of people allegedly at the center of the operation.
A former NATO official said: “NATO has a lot of issues with overclassification, but these labels are important. They are used by the originator of the information, and ‘NATO classified’ is not a label to use lightly.”
“This is really the kind of information that NATO doesn’t want to make public,” the former NATO official said.
He added that the chances of the files being decrypted are slim considering most of them appear to have been created between 2017 and 2020.
The sample files also include a presentation that appears to detail the inner workings of the land capture receiver CAMM (Common Air Defense Modular Missile), including the precise location of the electronic storage units within it.
One of them was recently sent to Poland for use in the Ukrainian conflict as part of the Sky Sabre system, and it is in operation.
MBDA Missile Systems has no objection that its information has been leaked, but said: “The company’s internal verification process indicates that the data provided online is neither confidential nor sensitive.”
However, some documents known to have been stolen from MBDA were marked as “proprietary information not to be disclosed or copied”.
“MBDA Missile Systems” was created in December 2001 following the merger of missile systems companies in France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
The company, which employs 13,000 people, is a joint venture between Airbus, BAE systems and Leonardo.
It posted £3.5bn in revenue last year, and counts the UK Ministry of Defence, the US military, the EU and NATO as customers for its weapons systems.