A Navy nuclear engineer and his wife were caught trying to sell classified information about nuclear warship designs to someone they thought was an agent of a foreign government. For their crimes, they were sentenced to 19 and 21 years in prison, respectively.
See also: Medibank customer data leaked by ransomware group
Jonathan and Diana Toebbe attempted to sell classified information, including digital media files containing technical details as well as operating manuals, to an undercover FBI agent.
While working as a Navy nuclear engineer, Jonathan Toebbe had access to “naval nuclear propulsion” information, including militarily sensitive design elements, performance characteristics, and other restricted data for warship nuclear power reactors.
See also: StrelaStealer malware: Steals Outlook and Thunderbird credentials
He served as a nuclear engineer in the Department of the Navy's Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, which gave him access to restricted naval nuclear reactor data, since he also had an active national security clearance through the U.S. Department of Defense.
On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Cindy Chung said that “Navy nuclear engineer Jonathan Toebbe and his wife Diana Toebbe endangered our nation’s security for financial gain.”.
“The Toebbes betrayed and endangered the loyal and selfless service members of the Department of the Navy through their serious criminal conduct. This offense is very serious.”
After being arrested by the FBI and NCIS on October 9, 2021, the Toebbes pleaded guilty in February 2022.
Secret agents and encrypted emails
The attempted exchange of restricted nuclear warship data began with a package sent to a foreign government on April 1, 2020, which contained “US Navy documents, a letter containing instructions,” and an SD card with instructions for communicating via an encrypted communications platform.
In December 2020, the FBI initiated contact with Jonathan Toebbe via encrypted ProtonMail email through an undercover agent posing as a representative of an undisclosed country. This action was taken after the FBI of Toebbe's actions.
See also: Who is the Earth Longzhi hacking group and what are its tactics?
In email exchanges between April and June 2021, the FBI convinced the defendant to hand over additional confidential US Navy information in exchange for money in Monero cryptocurrency. This is how they managed to entrap him.
Information source: bleepingcomputer.com
