Edward Snowdens former boss speaks out GeekWire

Edward Snowden. (Photo: Praxis Films)

The cybersecurity expert who hired Edward Snowden for his last jobis layingout his lessons learned but admits it would have been hard to stop the man whospilled some of the National Security Agencys most closely held secrets.

Knowing what I knew at the time, l would have hired him again, Steven Bay,a former cyberintelligence analyst for Booz Allen Hamilton, said today in Seattle at the IEEE Computer Societys Rock Stars of Cybersecurity conference.

Knowing what I know now, obviously, I wouldnt, he added.

Bay said todays talk marked the first time he discussed his side of the Snowden story in a public forum.

After the story broke, Baylost his NSA access and had to switchto a different position at Booz Allen Hamilton, which was Snowdens employer for thosecrucial few monthsin the spring of 2013. Baysaid he couldnttalk openly about the case until he left Booz Allen this June. Now hes the chief information security officer for NuVasive, a medical devices company in San Diego.

Snowdens timeline is well-known by now: After years of working atthe CIA, and as a Dell contractor for the NSA, he applied for another NSA contract job in Hawaii with Booz Allen. Bay said heand his offices technical directorinterviewed Snowden at a Wendys restaurant near the agencys facilities in Kunia.

He was a highly technical person, Bay recalled. He was very passionate about internet anonymization, as hes come out and talked about. He claimed to have run two Tor nodes out of his home and he also claimed to have known a zero day vulnerability within Tor.

Snowden knew his stuff so thoroughly that Bay said thetechnical directortook over the interview and basically nerded out for an hour.

Snowden got the job, and started working as an intelligence analyst at the NSAs facility in Hawaii at the beginning of April in 2013.

Bay said two red flags came up in the weeks that followed. First, Snowden began asking about a highly classified mass-surveillance program thats now known to the public as PRISM. Bay had access to the PRISM data, but Snowden didnt.

Bay didnt give Snowden access to PRISM, but he did provide him with somedatathat in retrospect he shouldnt have. I shared a little bit too much information, Bay acknowledged today. He said thats what caused him to lose NSA access after the Snowden story broke.

The second red flag popped up when Snowden started coming in late to work, only a few weeks after starting the job. When Bay asked about it, Snowden told him he was suffering from epilepsy.

In response, Bay played the role of a supportive manager. Then, in mid-May, Snowden told him the epilepsy was getting worse and that hed have to go in for tests on the following Monday and Tuesday. If the results werent good, he might have to be out even longer.

Bay said he suggested that Snowden apply for short-term disability, but Snowden told himhe didnt want to bother with the paperwork. Which made no sense to me but to each his own. If he wanted to take leave without pay, take leave without pay, Bay said.

In reality, Snowden wasnt suffering from epilepsy. Unbeknownst to Bay, Snowden took off forHong Kong on that Monday, May 20, carrying gigabytes worth of NSA data with him.

Bay said he received an email from Snowden the next day, telling him the test results were bad and that hed have to take more time offwork. In a reply email, Bay reminded Snowdento check in with human resources about filing for disability.

Wednesday night, the next night, he emails me back, and says, OK, sounds good, Ill get in touch with HR. And that was the last I ever heard from him, Bay said.

Bay tried to check in with Snowden several times afterward, to no avail. At the end of the month, Bay called his boss in Georgia, asking what to do about Snowdens time sheet. In response, the supervisor alertedNSAs security teamto Snowdens medical leave and his missing status.

Thank goodness he did this, Bay said. It really protected us at Booz Allen, and myself as well.

That was on a Friday. The followingMonday, NSA officials told Bay they were on the case. All that week, he and NSA agents went searching for Snowden.

In my mind, I was worried that he was dead, Bay said. I was worried that he had an epileptic seizure of some sort, or a blackout while driving on the island, and he drove off a cliff and killed himself. Thats what I was concerned about. The thought that Ed could be doing any of this didnt even cross my mind.

Bay said The Guardian published its first story based on NSA leakson the Thursday of that week in June. It was the talk of the agency, hesaid. A couple of days later, one of his best friends at work wondered out loud whether Snowden might beinvolved.

I thought, No way! Theres not a chance that Ed would do that. And I made the comment that that would be my worst nightmare, Bay said.

The next daySunday, June 9 Bay turned off his phone for a church meeting. When he turned it back on, he faced a torrent of texts. The first textwas from his friend, reading: Sorry, man, it looks like your worst nightmare came true.

Thats how Bay found out Snowden was the leaker. Three years afterward, Bay still gets emotional when he remembers the moment.

I found an empty room at the church, and I broke down, Bay said. Every negative thought one could have, I had. There were thoughts of Im going to lose my job, Im going to be blamed, Im going to get fired, Im going to go to jail, Im going to be the scapegoat. And I started thinking about what this is going to do to NSA, what about all of our undercover agents, what if that sort of information gets out? Are peoplegoing to die over this?

Bay spent most of the rest of the day in meetings with executivesat Booz Allen and agents from the FBI. Surprisingly, the FBI was totally cool, he recalled. I was expecting to be in a dark room with a hot light on me. It was nice to hear, despite all these negative emotions that I felt earlier in the day,thatnobody blamed us.

The days after that were devoted to damage control. Eventually, it came out that Snowden had been planning his moves for several years. The fact that he was skilled in information technology and gained access to classified information made him the ultimate insider threat, Bay said.

I was visiting with the director of NSA Hawaii, and he made the comment that, well, Booz Allen got caught holdingthe hot potato when the attack went out. Thats pretty accurate, he said.

It turns out, as [Snowden] admitted a few weeks later, he targeted our contract directly, Bay said. Somehow he figured out that our contract, and whatwe did on that contract, were the types of gateshe needed to get access to.

Today, Snowden is seen as a hero by millions of people opposed to government intrusions and invasions of privacy. AnOliver Stone movie opening this week, titled Snowden, casts the whistleblower in a sympathetic light. But as you can imagine, Bay is not afan.

The fact that Snowden hasbeen given asylum by the Russian government, under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin, leadsBay to saythat Snowden is probably colluding with that countrys security services.

I do believe that Ed has given up the goods to Putin, Bay said.

Snowden strongly denies making any such deal with Russian intelligence, or handing over any secrets to the Russians. Everything I had is in the hands of journalists, Snowden told the BBC last year.

It may take decades for history to render its judgment in the case of Edward Snowden vs. the NSA butin the meantime,Bay had these pointers to improve cybersecurity:

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Edward Snowdens former boss speaks out GeekWire