Britam Defence Ltd

Britam Defence Ltd
Type	commercial
Member of	Defence Manufacturers Association
A "risk management and training consultancy" that was the subject of a high profile 2013 data leak.

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. Their authenticity is debated, though critical emails are generally considered to be forged.

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

Critical Emails

The most incriminating document was an emails, "Syrian Issue.eml", Email purporting 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"

Accompanying documents

They included a range of files such as a copies of contracts with signatures, private emails and personnel data such as a passport scan and incident reports, which are generally thought to be genuine.

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.

Authenticity

Comparison of the Email headers of the two emails leaked as .eml files reveals that although sent 69 days apart, they were both sent at precisely 23:57:18. Furthermore, one had the sent date as Thu, 16 Oct 2012 23:57:18 - but the 16th of October 2012 was a Tuesday. This is the strongest evidence that the headers had been hand tampered with and that the contents should be viewed as highly advanced forgeries. The motive, and the identity of the perpetrator(s) remains unclear.

 

Employee on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	End
Michael Wilkes	Chairman	2013

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