Safeguards for 77% of AF Computer Systems Faulted

The Air Force has failed to properly safeguard 77% of its computer systems, allowing the possible breach of classified data on space boosters, “Star Wars” technology and major weapons systems, Pentagon auditors and officials say.

The security vulnerability also extends to sensitive data on the MX and Midgetman missiles and B-1 and F-16 aircraft, they said.

An Air Force official, responding to queries about the disclosure, said he was “95% confident” that no “actual compromises” of classified information on computers had occurred.

The Air Force Audit Agency, which inspected eight bases, sharply criticized officers at each facility for failure to inspect safeguards, such as lead boxes designed to limit electromagnetic signals emitted by the equipment.

“There was no assurance,” auditors wrote in a September report made available to United Press International, “that the classified information was adequately safeguarded and was not being compromised.”

Officers on the eight air bases failed to inspect safeguards on 165 of 214 computer systems, auditors found.

The Air Force Systems Command, the service’s chief arm for research, development and acquisition of major weapons systems, was one of four facilities found not to have conducted computer safeguard inspections in 1984 and 1985.

The command, at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, keeps electronically stored data on the performance, speed, thrust and range of the MX and Midgetman missiles, the B-1 and F-16 aircraft and other weapons, command spokesman Capt. Jim Benson said.

The Western Space Missile Center at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, which monitors test firings in the Pacific of the MX and the Atlas, Titan and Scout space boosters, failed to inspect at least half of its computer systems, auditors found.