US government IT worker pleads guilty to passing Top Secret files to Ethiopia
- Severity
- High
- Sources
- 1
What happened
Abraham Teklu Lemma, who held downdraft authority and a Top Secret clearance since 2020, pleaded guilty to espionage after allegedly copying classified material from non-DoS systems without authorisation, burning it to CDs with green labels and removing markings. Prosecutors say he sent Secret and Top Secret material to Ethiopian officials via an encrypted app from around August and September 2022, and that his storage drives were accessed remotely by Ethiopian officials between April and June 2023. The articles describe no vulnerability or patch. The case points to insider-threat indicators such as bulk downloads, removable media, unusual cash deposits and attempts to avoid currency transaction reporting.
For security analysts · Written by AI from 1 source · Wrong?
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Written by AI from the sources, checked against them