*World War III watch*
The leaked Pentagon documents appear to be a physical theft rather than a cyber leak, CBS reported Tuesday evening.
“One U.S. official indicated that not all printers are authorized to print classified documents, and those that have this authorization register a unique ID when printing, so this may provide some clues into the search for the leaker.” CBS News reported.
Classified documents detailing the Ukraine war, Middle East, China, Africa and Israel ended up on a gaming platform.
According to the latest leak, US and UK special forces are on the ground in Ukraine.
NSC spox John Kirby this week said of the Pentagon docs leak, “we don’t know who’s behind this, we don’t know what the motive is.”
“Two officials tell CBS News that it does not appear to be a cyber leak, but rather a physical theft of highly classified material,” CBS’s Catherine Herridge reported on Tuesday.
WATCH:
Two officials tell @CBSNews it does not appear to be a cyber leak, but rather a physical theft of classified material. Tonight, SEC Austin acknowledged the leaked docs were exposed on the web, “where exactly + who had access at that point, we don’t know.” pic.twitter.com/iskQQA4pH8
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) April 12, 2023
CBS News reported:
The FBI is working to track down who leaked sensitive and secret defense and intelligence documents and shared them on social media, and at the same time, the Pentagon is reducing the number of people who have access to the kind of classified information that has been leaked.
The number of people on government-wide distribution lists who receive classified updates has been culled significantly since Friday, U.S. officials said. Before the leak was revealed, about 1,000 people usually had access to these types of documents. CBS News has reviewed a number of the leaked documents, all of which are color printouts with text, graphics or maps that appear to have been folded, unfolded and then photographed and shared on social media sites including 4Chan and Discord.
The Pentagon’s internal review of the matter will be led by Milancy Harris, deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence and security. The review will probe the scope and scale of the leak and the impact on the U.S. and allies’ national security, and examine how information flows and who has access to it.
The FBI is leading the criminal investigation, which is only in its early stages, according to a U.S. official familiar with the probe. Former officials familiar with leak investigations predicted that identifying the source could happen quickly because “the universe of possibilities is relatively small.”
Source material can be found at this site.
