Things are red hot at the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency — but it's for all the wrong reasons.
The agency's executive director said in a July 27 memo to workers that porn and other sexually explicit images have been detected on its network — which could ultimately jeopardize the government's security system, he wrote.
Besides being "unprofessional" and taking time away from work, downloading dirty files "can compromise the security of the network (through) the introduction of malware or malicious code," Executive Director John James Jr. wrote in the letter, which was obtained by Bloomberg News.
Concerns over employees perusing porn in the office was in response to "a few people downloading material from some websites that were known to have had virus and malware issues," agency spokesman Rick Lehner said in an e-mail to Bloomberg News.
Employees and contractors who are caught sending smut through the network face disciplinary action, including losing their security clearances or suspension.
Computer codes, meanwhile, can be embedded into photos or other files downloaded and inadvertently used to hack into a network. They can also be used to hide sensitive information.
The use of so-called steganography has been rampant: In May, CNN reported that an alleged Al Qaeda operative named Maqsood Lodin had snuck plans for terror attacks in Europe inside a file called "Sexy Tanja," which was hidden inside a porn video file.
He was caught by German investigators and has pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges.
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