Fighter Jet Security Leak First Found By Pittsburgh-Area Firm

The government may have known about a security breach in the Pentagon’s costliest jet fighter project much earlier than first reported.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that computer spies were able to copy and download massive amounts of data from the Defense Department’s $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project.

But Target 11 has learned that Tiversa, an Internet security firm in Cranberry, warned the government that highly sensitive files from the Strike Fighter Project were available on the Internet four years ago.

Bob Boback, CEO and founder of Tiversa told Target 11, “Tiversa first found the files in January 2005. We immediately alerted the Department of Defense and other authorities to the presence of the files. It was clear the information shouldn’t be available world wide like this.”

Boback is confident the files mentioned in the Wall Street Journal article are the same files his investigators discovered in 2005.

“From the description of the terabytes of information described, that is what we were seeing," he said.

But he said that isn’t all Tiversa saw.

“There was information regarding the Strike Fighter, but there was also sensitive information that was not part of the Wall Street Journal article. That is very troubling,” Boback said.

In 2005, Boback said his company found the files at two IP addresses, one in the U.S. in Georgia and the other in Dublin, Ireland.

The Wall Street Journal said in its article that it appeared the attack originated in China.

This isn't the first security leak Tiversa found.

In February, Target 11 reported exclusively that Tiversa had discovered the blueprints for Marine One, the president’s helicopter, at an IP address in Iran.

Peer to peer file sharing, typically used to exchange music and videos, was responsible for that leak and Boback believes that's the same way the Strike Fighter information got out.

“We've seen it happen in the past and the files continue to remain out on the file sharing networks,” said Boback.

He also told Target 11 he knows where the leak originated.

Boback said, “I can confirm the source and I can confirm it is defense contractor that leaked this information. It was a large defense contractor. I can confirm it is not Lockheed.”

A defense contractor was also the source of the Marine One leak.

Boback said the large number of files download is troubling and says some of that information is very sensitive.

“Detailed avionics, detailed schematics, things you just don't want out there,” Boback said.

Boback said Tiversa will now do a global spread analysis to see where that file resides.

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