IDF installs new information security safeguards

Measures aim to prevent Wikileaks-type revelations; one safeguard: alarm will go off when disc-on-key inserted in IDF computer.

By YAAKOV KATZ
USB key 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
USB key 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The IDF has instituted a number of new security measures over the past year aimed at preventing major leaks of sensitive information like what was published by Wikileaks on Sunday.
The new safeguards were developed by the IDF's Information Security Unit and include a system that will track every document, classified as top secret by the military, who it is sent to, who printed it and who burned it onto a CD.
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The new system will not allow a document that is classified as top secret, for example, to be transferred to someone who does not have security clearance to view documents classified as top secret.
"This does not mean that something like Wikileaks cannot happen in Israel but it would be more difficult," a former officer involved in information security said on Monday.
The tightening of regulations has taken place over the past year and gained importance after Anat Kam was arrested for leaking thousands of top secret and classified documents to a Haaretz reporter.
Kam, who served as an assistant to OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh's bureau chief during her IDF service, was exposed to classified and sensitive military information and over a period of what appears to be a year, she allegedly copied the documents into a folder she had created on a computer in the office and then burned it onto a CD during her last week of service.
Other steps taken by the IDF have included thorough background checks of soldiers serving in sensitive positions and the cataloging of every IDF soldier according to their level of clearance. Sources said on Monday that the IDF has increased the number of polygraphs it conducts on soldiers and officers by 50 percent in the past year.
In addition, if a disc-on-key is attached to an IDF computer it will immediately set off an alarm at the IDF Information Security Unit alerting soldiers there of a possible infiltration.