Edward Snowden Says CIA’s Default Password For ‘All Kinds Of Things’ Was ‘password1234’

Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden has revealed what was a commonly used default password at the Central Intelligence Agency.

What Happened: Snowden said on Twitter that more than 15 years ago, the default password used by the CIAs engineering team for all kinds of things was basically password1234.

The other ones were kept on the desktop in a spreadsheet called “passwords.xls” Edward Snowden (@Snowden) January 4, 2023

He said other passwords were kept on the desktop in a spreadsheet with the file name passwords.xls.

Why It Matters: Snowden said in the same thread that the computers were on an air-gapped network which meant that they were not connected to the internet.

The logic (in the old days) was that anybody touching a keyboard already has a Top Secret clearance, so even though everyone understood the theoretical risks of weak [passwords], they weren't taken very seriously.

It was an airgapped network, meaning it wasn’t connected to the internet. The logic (in the old days) was that anybody touching a keyboard already has a Top Secret clearance, so even though everyone understood the theoretical risks of weak pws, they weren’t taken very seriously. Edward Snowden (@Snowden) January 4, 2023

Snowden was granted Russian nationality in September. He fled prosecution after allegedly leaking highly sensitive information from the National Security Agency in 2013.

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