DATA SECURITY SPECIALISTS DUPED BY FEMME FATALE
Robin Sage, according to her profiles on Facebook and other social-networking websites, was an attractive, flirtatious 25-year-old woman working as a “cyber threat analyst” at the U.S. Navy’s Network Warfare Command. In less than a month, she collected nearly 300 social-network connections among security specialists, military personnel and staff at intelligence agencies and defense contractors.
Pictures of the femme fatale on her Facebook page included her at a party posing in thigh-high knee socks and a skull-and-crossbones bikini captioned, “doing what I do best.” She also commented on her Twitter page, “Sorry to say, I’m not a Green Beret! Just a cute girl stopping by to say hey! My life is about info sec [information security] all the way!”
She was an avid user of LinkedIn – a social-networking site for professionals sometimes described as “Facebook for grown-ups.” Her connections LinkedIn included men working for the nation’s most senior military officer, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and for one of the most secret government agencies of all, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds, launches and runs U.S. spy satellites. Her other connections included a senior intelligence official in the U.S. Marine Corps, the chief of staff for a U.S. congressman, and several senior executives at defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. Almost all of her connections were seasoned security professionals, although Robin Sage did not exist.