Britam Defence Ltd

The chairman of Britam Defence Ltd, General Sir Michael Wilkes KCB CBE, informs visitors to its homepage that "In just ten years, Britam has become one of the world’s leading risk management and training consultancies."

2013 Document Leak

On 24th January 2013, published reported that a hacker by the name of "JAsIrX" had uploaded 423MB of information to various file sharing websites.

Cover note

The files were accompanied by a cover note which read as follows:

"Hello,

I'm JAsIrX and I will share with you some documents downloaded after hacking Britam Defence server. Its website is located on the Malaysian server. I found bugs in the website with same ip and uploaded web-shell through this site. Then I hacked plesk parallels control panel and gained access to Britam Defence mail accounts and website directory.

Leaked documents: - Contracts copies with signatures - Private email correspondence - Personnel data, etc.

Britam Defence is British private military company, operates mainly in the Middle East. It killed Arabs in Iraq and plans to invade in Iran and Syria. Look through leaked documents carefully. CW means chemical weapon, g-shell is short for a gas shell I guess.

Help to distribute this info and let other people know about the threats. Thank all

Leaked Data

The included a range of files such as a copies of contracts with signatures, private emails and personnel data such as a passport image, and incident reports. Probably the most quoted document was an Email said to have been from David Goulding, the Business Development Director to company founder, Philip Doughty:

"We've got a new offer. It's about Syria again. Qataris propose an attractive deal and swear that the idea is approved by Washington. We'll have to deliver a CW to Homs, a Soviet origin g-shell from Libya similar to those that Assad should have. They want us to deploy our Ukrainian personnel that should speak Russian and make a video record. Frankly, I don't think it's a good idea but the sums proposed are enormous. Your opinion?

Kind regards David"

Daily Mail Reporting and Libel Action

On 29th January 2013, the Daily Mail published a story entitled "U.S. 'backed plan to launch chemical weapon attack on Syria and blame it on Assad's regime'". This was removed on 31st January without explanation.

On 18th April 2013, the Daily Mail published a story entitled "Britam Defence, David Goulding and Philip Doughty" which stated that "we now accept that email was fabricated". No comment was made about the authenticity of the other documents. Press Gazette reported on 26 June 2013 that the Daily Mail paid £110,000 plus costs as a libel payout to Britam Defence.