Treasury official charged in Russia leak

IT was an approved flash drive device. Since the re-banning of flash drives in 2008, the Federal Government has built the means to deny unapproved devices but there still are requirements to use approved devices which are registered and added to a white list on the network.

Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin Looks like there might be a flaw in that process.

Well, look at it this way. There are genuine requirements to have flash drives in order to do a job or accomplish a mission. With the events from 2008, which led to a larger restriction on the devices, technology solved part of the problem by managing who can have one and which systems they can use the approved device on. Since it's an approved device, the chances of them being compromised with malware is much lower. Currently on most government networks, you can't plug an unapproved device into a networked system without it being denied or at least tripping an alarm to the Security personnel.

Unfortunately, we still have the human factor when it comes to their own view of the world, what they perceive as right or wrong, and what they are willing to do about it (as made evident by the above article and others like Winner and Snowden). This is why we have such things like clearances or various levels and tons of training to educate us on what to do if you see something done wrong. This individual ignored the procedures and effectively the law to give people information they are not entitled to or authorized to have. No technology I am aware of now can prevent a trusted insider from doing this, which is why we must hammer her and make an example of those who leak or willfully mishandle classified and sensitive information.