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Thursday March 28, 2024

Five Pakistanis accused of US Congress cyber breach

By Wajid Ali Syed
January 27, 2018

WASHINGTON: Five Pakistan-born individuals, who were until recently working for the US Congress as IT aides, have been presumed guilty of stealing information of official data servers. The fraudulent activity was reported earlier last year and an internal investigation was initiated.

The probe presentation has concluded that five staffers, hired to provide technical support, breached the security protocol, had unauthorised access to official data and possibly removed it to another location. Working as IT staffers for multiple Democratic Congress members, these individuals had access to correspondence, emails, confidential files.

The probe has determined, "Five shared employee system administrators have collectively logged into 15-member offices and the Democratic Caucus although they were not employed by the offices they accessed." The presentation was written by the House' Office of the Inspector General, and found indications that a House server was used for nefarious purposes and elevated the risk that individuals could be reading and/or removing information. One system administrator "logged into a member's office two months after he was terminated from that office," it said.

Another presentation also revealed that "during September 2016, shared employee continued to use Democratic Caucus computers in anomalous ways: logged onto laptop as system administrator; changed identity and logged onto Democratic Caucus server using 17 other user account credentials; some credentials belonged to members; accessed 9 offices to which the employee wasn't working for." It also found possible storage of sensitive House information outside the office.

While the report has not been made public but even President Trump drew attention to the couple in an interview published in late December in New York Times. "Whatever happened to this Pakistani guy who worked with the DNC?" he asked adding, "With the two servers that they broke up into million pieces? Whatever happened to him?" The couple has not been charged with anything specific to his IT duties in the Congress.

The staffers were identified as Imran Awan, his wife Hina Alvi, his brothers Abid and Jamal, and his friend Rao Abbas. Awan and his wife Alvi, who were born in Pakistan, were indicted by a federal jury as well on at least four counts of conspiracy against the United States.

"Defendants Awan and Alvi did unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly conspire, combine, confederate, and agree with each other to commit offenses against the United States," the indictment said.

Chairman of the Committee on Housing Administration in February 2017 released an official statement declaring that, "House officials became aware of suspicious activity and alleged theft committed by certain House IT support staff. An internal investigation determined that a number of House policies and procedures had been violated. This information was turned over to the United States Capitol Police and their investigation is going on. These employees have been blocked from accessing House systems. All offices impacted have been contacted. No further comment will be issued until the investigation is complete."

The IT staffers appeared on the payroll of dozens of Congressional members and collected more than four million dollars in funds since 2009. Until they were barred, they were able to access the computers of Intelligence, House and Foreign Affairs Committee members. Such committees deal with many of the country's sensitive issues and documents.

Given the suspected violations, most of the Congress members terminated Awan's services except Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz from Florida. Schultz was also the target of a disastrous email hack when she served as chair of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election campaign.

When the US Capitol police named Awan and others suspects of theft, blackmailing and fraud, Shultz threatened the police with "consequences" for holding technical equipment including computers that she said belonged to her. The police wanted to investigate the allegations of massive breach in funneling sensitive congressional data offsite without the knowledge of the authorities. A publication Politico had described Awan and his wife as having a "friendly personal relationship" with Schultz and Congressman Gregory Meeks of New York.

Interestingly, Shultz retained Imran Awan for months until he was finally arrested by the FBI on July 24 last year when he tried to flee to Pakistan. Awan's wife, Hina Alvi, had already left for Pakistan with their children in March. She was first stopped for carrying more than 12,000 dollars in cash but was later let go. The FBI found out that Awan had already wired thousands of dollars to Pakistan. "On January 18, an international wire transfer form was submitted at the Congressional Federal Credit Union in the amount of 283,000 dollars to two individuals in Faisalabad, Pakistan," an affidavit submitted by the FBI revealed.

Hina Alvi later struck a deal with the authorities and returned to the US. The documents revealed that the government had requested the court to summon defendant Alvi as she will turn-in her passport and will not seek to book any international travel following her appearance.