Civil Servant Who Watched Porn at Work Blamed for Infecting a US Government Network With Malware

A U.S. government network was infected with malware thanks to one employee’s “extensive history” of watching porn on his work computer, investigators have found.

The audit, carried out by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s inspector general, found that a U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS) network at the EROS Center, a satellite imaging facility in South Dakota, was infected after an unnamed employee visited thousands of porn pages that contained malware, which downloaded to his laptop and “exploited the USGS’ network.” Investigators found that many of the porn images were “subsequently saved to an unauthorized USB device and personal Android cell phone,” which was connected to the employee’s government-issued computer.

Investigators found that his Android cell phone “was also infected with malware.”

The findings were made public in a report earlier this month but buried on the U.S. government’s oversight website and went largely unreported. (TechCrunch, October 29, 2018)
--