Simple Redaction Error Exposes Nuclear Submarine Secrets

The vulnerabilities of UK nuclear submarines were exposed as a result of a redaction error inside a sensitive document released in response to a Freedom on Information Act (FOIA) request.

The FOIA request was submitted by anti-nuclear campaigners and resulted in the "restricted" document being published in redacted form on the Parliament's website.

However, according to the Daily Star, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) employees did the censoring by simply changing the text background color to black.

Obviously, black text on black background cannot be seen, but it can be copied and pasted in another document, which is what happened in this case.

The report had entire pages of information blacked out using this insecure method and according to the newspaper, they contained data about what it takes to cause a nuclear core meltdown.

An assessment of the fleet's capability to handle a catastrophic accident is described as "unacceptable" in the report and there is also a comparison with disaster response procedures used by US vessels.

"This is hugely embarrassing. Whoever is responsible should be sacked. The ­Americans will be furious their procedures have been exposed," an MoD official commented under the protection of anonymity.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time when such an error occurs and it won't probably be the last either. In this case the document was removed after Daily Star notified the MoD, but it's not certain how many people downloaded and have the original.

A properly redacted document is now available, but as everyone knows, once something has been publicly released on the Internet it's nearly impossible to limit its exposure.

"This was a real school-boy error to make - as anyone with even an ­elementary knowledge of computers would know how to read the 'redacted' content," commented Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security vendor Sophos.