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Jan 177 min read

Edward Snowden: 11 Years After History's Most Significant Insider Attack



Introduction: The Curious Case of Edward Snowden


Where it concerns the underground world of Cybersecurity and the way in which society views technology as a whole, there is no individual considered more controversial than Edward Snowden. As a former infrastructure analyst employed by the National Security Agency (NSA), Snowden became infamous for exposing the greatest cache of government secrets in United States history, and ever since then, he has been designated the CIA’s most wanted cybercriminal. However, depending on who you ask, Edward Snowden is either considered a hero or a villain for his actions committed as a whistleblower, or according to U.S. government terms: an “insider-threat”.  


Edward Snowden is primarily known for revealing taboo United States surveillance practices to the media, but his journey to accomplishing the greatest breach of national security in history is even more intriguing. Snowden states in his memoir, Permanent Record, that he was able to pull off the attack by using the same tactics that his job required while working for the NSA. Contrary to popular belief, Snowden was never granted “top-secret” access by the NSA. Instead, he leveraged his privileges as a systems administrator to exploit air gaps in the NSA’s network, using a remote thin-client computer to access the agency’s internal network, the “NSAnet”. Before the breach, Snowden was working in Honolulu as a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton, but this was ultimately a cover for the NSA.  


The Number One Insider Threat



According to the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), an individual who has or has previously possessed access or knowledge to an employer’s resources is classified as an “insider threat”, or an internal adversary within an organization. An internal adversary can include any individual who performs malicious activities unintentionally in the form of human error, but in the case of Edward Snowden, the House Intelligence Committee declares him as a “serial exaggerator and fabricator”, having become a traitor to his country on multiple accounts of intentional sabotage. Therefore, Edward Snowden and his disastrous cyber-attack cannot just be the straight-forward work of a hero or a villain, for the effects of his actions appoint him as the greatest ethical enigma to ever impact the United States. 


How He Did It



Taking advantage of network air-gaps, Snowden copied hundreds of classified files to thumb drives, smuggled the drives out of Honolulu government property, and uploaded them to his personal server for analysis. According to the Guardian, one of the original publications in which Snowden worked with to leak the documents, he reportedly flew to Hong Kong in May of 2013 and disclosed the files to journalists from the relative safety of his hotel room. Among the hundreds of secrets that Snowden exposed to the world, a few stand out as detrimental to the United States’ well-being, not just because of the damage done to some of America’s political alliances, but also the increased ability for adversaries to take advantage of national weaknesses. 


Included within the cache of exposed documents was NYMROD; a top-secret surveillance program for spying and eavesdropping on America’s allies. Thanks to Snowden, the friendly relationships with British, French, Canadian, (etc.) governments quickly turned sour due to the disclosure of this confidential information.  When it was revealed to Angela Merkel -the pro-USA Chancellor of Germany at the time- that US intelligence operatives had wire-tapped her phone, she was reportedly livid, causing Germany’s relationship with the United States to be the tensest it had been since World War Two.  


Another sheltered project included PRISM; a government program instituted by the NSA that allows U.S. intelligence operatives to access the private data of any person in the country. With PRISM, the NSA is able to view information in the form of emails, photos, phone calls, files, or any other data provided by big-tech giants such as Google, Meta, Apple, (etc.). In Permanent Record, Snowden states that his main concern with the U.S. government’s breach of personal privacy is that any individual, regardless of whether or not a crime was committed, can be made to look guilty by law enforcement. He goes on to compare the NSA’s practices of conducting mass surveillance to the formidable Nazi propaganda machine, in which if individuals of a nation “have nothing to hide, then they should have nothing to fear”.


CIA Ethics




In terms of the CIA Triad, a Cybersecurity model measuring the Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability of data, arguments can be made for whether Snowden’s ethics subscribed to these principles. Snowden undoubtedly violated his oath to protect the confidentiality of government data, for after projects like NYMROD and PRISM were revealed to the public, the damage to the NSA and other United States agencies was catastrophic. Mass amounts of the population retaliated, not just within the United States, but internationally across the world. These protests, often sporting the motto of “freedom of speech”, represented the people’s resentment towards executive agendas, sowing nation-wide distrust. Integrity, which is the act of verifying the authenticity of data, was likely not compromised by Snowden due to the fact that his goal was to unleash authentic government secrets in the first place. If anything, the availability branch of the CIA triad was a contributing factor to Snowden’s ability to compromise the NSA system. Since Snowden was technically unauthorized to handle many of the files that he ended up accessing, availability was a major vulnerability in the NSA’s network infrastructure.  


In the aftermath of the breach, the United States Department of Justice charged Edward Snowden with the violation of several laws, mainly including theft of government property and the US Espionage Act, which bans anyone from sharing information that could be weaponized to harm the United States. However, many individuals would argue that these charges were unconstitutionally served, and that no laws were broken under the context of America’s First Amendment. Based on these events, Edward Snowden has become a tremendously polarizing figure of debate for most Americans, with many individuals going so far as to stake their entire belief systems on the ethics of his actions.  


"Polarizing Effects"


According to a study performed by Statista in 2013, roughly 50% of Americans believed that Edward Snowden deserved a full pardon from the United States government, while the other half believed that he should be prosecuted for his deeds as a whistleblower. The chart is displayed below:   



Snowden's supporters, among them journalists and human rights activists, continue to advocate for his pardon, often praising Snowden for his valuable service of increasing transparency and accountability in governments across the world. Amnesty International states that Snowden largely improved the way that digital communications now operate, and “should not be punished” for his contributions. A joint study on the “Snowden Debacle” performed by Pew Research Institute also relates that in 2016, 57% of Americans claimed that government surveillance of U.S. citizens was “unacceptable”, indicating a serious need for change. This prompted numerous updates to security policies, an uptick in security awareness training, and a person’s increased understanding of their legal rights when it comes to privacy. It is true that in the aftermath of Snowden’s leak, more people started paying attention to privacy constraints, with many Cybersecurity standards being updated to reflect this conscious shift in mindset. For example, many Big Tech companies (such as Apple, Meta, Google, Yahoo, etc.), now feel more pressure to report the transparency of their terms and conditions.


Overall, the country experienced a revitalized shift in technology ethics as a whole, with universities, corporations, and other private sector institutions weighing in on the data privacy debate. However, there is no denying the fact that Snowden sometimes possesses a narcissistic and exaggerative personality, often showcased in Permanent Record, which disenchants many individuals on his image. His insistence on being portrayed as a patriot often collides with the narrative painted by government sources, who argue that Snowden’s loyalty to Russia and indifference to whistleblowing activities, makes him a dangerous threat to America’s well-being. To this day, one half of Americans believe that the release of confidential government files has had disastrous effects on United States diplomacy, homeland security, and overall, has weakened America’s reputation as an international power.


As mentioned, some foreign partnerships with the United States were severely damaged during the "Snowden Debacle", ultimately giving America's enemies the chance to capitalize on the insurrection. In fact, many Americans largely attribute the increased aggression from the Chinese military, Russian-Ukranian War, and the Iranian nuclear program to be a direct result of Snowden’s whistleblowing. Snowden currently resides as a political refugee in Russia, and in 2022, he was granted Russian citizenship by President Vladimir Putin himself. This adds no more compassion for anti-Snowden supporters, who continue to view the man as a grave threat to the United States.


Conclusion



Despite the pitfalls of his actions, it is difficult to ignore the benefits that Snowden has contributed to society and to the Cybersecurity industry as a whole. A stronger case should also be made for the fact that after becoming public enemy number one, Snowden has not completely shrunk back into obscurity. He continues to voice his thoughts and opinions from the relative safety of a digital presence (mainly on Elon Musk's "X" platform). And while we did refer to him as "narcissistic", that's not completely his fault. Considering the fact that Hollywood was so quick to churn out a motion-picture film starring Shailene Woodley and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as his likeness, no one is fully immune to the charms of Tinsel-Town. So regardless of whether people choose to view him as a hero or a villain, at least everyone can agree that Edward Snowden is one of the most influential people to disrupt the course of history.


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