Exchange of correspondence between the
Chairman and the Foreign Secretary regarding FCO Security
FCO SECURITY
Letter to the Secretary of State, Foreign
and Commonwealth Office from the Chairman of the Committee, 24
December 2002
I and colleagues on the Foreign Affairs Committee
were alarmed to read the enclosed report in The Sunday Times
on 22 December[1].
I would be grateful to receive a note on the
matters covered in this report, and setting out what steps the
FCO is taking to deal with leaks of sensitive material. The Committee
is content that the note should be classified, if necessary.
Chairman of the Committee
December 2002
Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from the Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
14 January 2003
Thank you for your letter of 24 December in
which you asked for a note on press reports about leaks of FCO
documents and alleged weaknesses in FCO computer systems.
The Sunday Times article is correct in
saying that FCO document appeared on an American website on two
occasions before December. The first occasion involved three internal
minutes classified Restricted and Confidential recording meetings
and discussions about FCO computer systems. The second occasion
involved an FCO reporting telegram of a visit to London by the
then Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Sergei Ivanov.
On both occasions, the documents were more than two years old.
We take all security breaches seriously and
this is no exception. The documents were widely available on the
FCO central database but we are carrying out a detailed investigation
to try to identify source of these leaks.
The Observer also published an article
on 22 December containing allegations about FCO computer systems.
The claims are vague, generalised and, in places plain wrong.
I attach a note on the allegations made in The
Observer article[2]which
might be of interest to the Committee. (Annex A)
Rt Hon Jack Straw MP
Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
January 2003
Annex A
FCO IT Systems: Comments on Observer article
In 2000-01 the FCO undertook a major exercise
to transform its IT platform from a UNIX based system called Aramis
to a Windows based system, Firecrest. This was a complex undertaking.
One of the more difficult aspects was the transfer of documents
from the Secret Aramis system to Confidential Firecrest. The objective
was to transfer only documents classified CONFIDENTIAL and below
from Aramis to Firecrest. But existing technology is such that
when documents are copied from one system to another, documents
of a higher classification may also be transferred in the process.
As part of the contingency plan in place to mitigate this risk,
the Firecrest Help Desk conducted a spot check, and, in the process,
found a small number of illegally-migrated documents in the new
Firecrest Registry. These had been illegally transferred because
they had been mistakenly registered on Aramis with the wrong classification.
The Firecrest Registry Server was closed down for a few hours
while these documents were deleted, but at no time was there a
general system shutdown.
The FCO's response was rapid, positive and clear.
The migration software was modified to ensure that subsequent
document transfers excluded information classified above Confidential
from Firecrest. And the Head of the Information Management Group
wrote to all Heads of Departments asking that the Departmental
System Administrator review the security classifications of documents
registered on Firecrest.
The comments in the article about Aramis are
confused. Aramis is capped at Secret. Top Secret work is carried
out on Fortress. The Fortress user community is small and concentrated
in those Departments that have a very good understanding of security.
It is most unlikely that a Fortress user would deliberately classify
a document at Secret rather than Top Secret in order that it could
be processed on Aramis. If anything it is possible that a user
would opt to classify at Confidential rather than at Secret and
thus be able to use the many applications on Firecrest rather
than the less user-friendly facilities on Aramis. There is no
evidence that this has been happening. FCC staff have, on many
occasions during the past few years, been reminded of the importance
of correctly classifying information and ensuring that it is only
transmitted over the correct, secure channels. They have been
warned that failure to abide by these rules could lead to disciplinary
action.
The allegation of weak physical and technological
security and poor crisis management is another example of unfounded
opinion rather than fact. The Firecrest system and its architecture
has been designed to meet central Government security rules. It
has been accredited as conforming to such by the FCO's internal
security authorities and the UK National Authority. Firecrest
operates at three levels, Confidential, Restricted and UBS. Only
users with the necessary security clearance have access to Confidential
Firecrest and there is a firewall boundary between the networks
which conforms to national security standards. Access to the Firecrest
Registry is indeed possible from any PC in the FCO and encourages
the sharing of information throughout the organisation. But all
Firecrest users with access to the Registry have the necessary
security clearance and all PCs are protected with passwords which
meet national security standards. All communications between UK
Firecrest and Confidential Firecrest systems in Posts overseas
are protected by encryption approved by the National Authorities.
Neither Fortress nor Aramis are equipped to
send documents or electronic mail to an address that is not within
their respective networks. Fortress terminals have removable hard
disks, which are locked away overnight. Aramis servers are housed
in secure cabinets. The terminals are again protected by an approved
password system and are "dumb terminals" (they have
no intelligence that would allow data to be recovered from them
when they are not in use).
A great deal of effort has been put into improving
the resilience of the Firecrest system, particularly in the aftermath
of the 11 September attacks, and the FCO believes it now has a
system which can withstand all predictable system failures, and
which has appropriate security safeguards against unauthorised
attacks.
1 The Sunday Times, 22 December 2002, p3. Back
2
The Observer, 22 December 2002, p1. Back
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