UK's nuclear submarine fleet secrets laid bare thanks to internet blunder

Published on Sunday 17 April 2011 19:00

DEFENCE chiefs were forced into an embarrassing emergency retraction after secret information about the UK's nuclear-powered submarines was inadvertently published on a website.

A technical error meant sections of a Ministry of Defence report which appeared to have been blacked out could in fact be read by anyone who copied and pasted them into another document.

The offending paragraphs have now been properly covered up but were reported to include expert opinion about the fleet's ability to withstand a catastrophic accident.

Details of measures used by the US Navy to protect its own nuclear submarines were also accidentally made available, according to a Sunday newspaper which alerted the MoD to the problem.

According to the report the information reveals a fatal flaw in the safety of British nuclear submarines when faced with an onboard accident.

The leaked information also detailed the way the American nuclear fleet would react in the case of a similar disaster.

Tory MP Patrick Mercer, who served in the Army, said the information would be "hugely interesting" to Britain's enemies and its release "potentially catastrophic".

The document involved was an assessment drawn up by the head of the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator Commodore Andrew McFarlane over options for the reactors in future submarines to replace the Trident fleet.

In sections released on the Parliament website, it concluded that the existing reactors were "potentially vulnerable" to fatal accidents - leading ministers to suggest new versions would be used.

Some parts of the declassified document were redacted when it was published, to protect sensitive information but the technique used meant the words were still electronically available underneath.

Anyone browsing the document could read the classified text simply by highlighting it and then copying and pasting to another document.

Graham Cluley, of online security experts Sophos, said: "It's a staggeringly stupid thing to do. Anyone with even an elementary knowledge of computing would know how to read it. I can only assume they gave it to a junior member of staff to deal with. If this document is like this, who knows what else is? It's very sloppy security."

The original report - which was released after a freedom of information request from anti-nuclear campaigners was written in 2009 and seen by just a handful of military top brass and politicians, including Defence Secretary Liam Fox.

Last month, Dr Fox pledged to change the design of onboard reactors and to replace it with a more up-to-date version when any subs are commissioned.

An MoD spokesman said: "The MoD is grateful to the journalist for bringing this matter to our attention. As soon as we were told about this, we took steps to ensure the document was removed from the public domain and replaced by a properly redacted version.

"We are doing everything possible to prevent a recurrence of this."

The concern comes at a time when safety on board Britain's nuclear submarines is under scrutiny after the fatal shooting on board HMS Astute earlier this month.

Crew member Ryan Donovan has been charged with the murder of Lieutenant Commander Ian Molyneux, and the attempted murder of three colleagues.