NEW SECURITY LEARNING

One of NATO’s top training chiefs has told New Security Learning, in an exclusive interview, that more training in future will have to be done on the ‘unclassified’ web. Despite the potential security considerations, Lieutenant General Karlheinz Viereck says that it would greatly assist cooperation over training with other organisations, such as the African Union.

by Dr Harold Elletson

In a front page story on April 18th, Britain’s Daily Telegraph revealed that three Government departments had inadvertently published “sensitive” information on the Internet. A technical error meant that blacked-out parts of various reports by at least three Government departments could be read by copying and pasting their contents into another document. Details published included an analysis of how the Royal Navy would cope with a catastrophic incident. As the Ministry of Defence started a review of dozens of documents, amidst concern over the accidental disclosure of military secrets, it was clear that Whitehall officials were responsible for the blunder, raising questions over both their competence and the training they had received.