Former Intelligence Worker Admits to Data Breach at GCHQ
LONDON (Reuters) - A former British intelligence worker on Monday admitted endangering national security by taking top secret data home, on the day his trial was due to begin.
Hasaan Arshad, 25, pleaded guilty to one charge of under the Computer Misuse Act, committed between August and September 2022 when working at British signals intelligence agency GCHQ.
The charge states Arshad's actions "caused or created a significant risk of serious damage" to national security and he "intended by doing the act to cause serious damage of a material kind or was reckless as to whether such damage was caused".
Arshad's lawyer Nina Grahame said Arshad had pleaded guilty on the basis that he was reckless as to whether he had caused damage.
Arshad will be sentenced at London's Old Bailey court on June 13. He will also be sentenced for two offences of making indecent images of children, to which he pleaded guilty in 2023.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by Michael Holden)
