A former staff member at GCHQ has pleaded guilty to risking national security by taking top secret data home.
Hasaan Arshad, 25, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, admitted to an offence under the Computer Misuse Act on what would have been the first day of his trial at London's Old Bailey.
On Monday, the ex-GCHQ intern pleaded guilty to a charge under Section 3ZA of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 relating to "unauthorised acts causing, or creating risk of, serious damage".
On August 24, 2022, he took his work mobile phone into a top secret area of GCHQ in Cheltenham and connected the device to a top secret work station, the court was told.
The ex-GCHQ intern pleaded guilty to a charge under Section 3ZA of the Computer Misuse Act 1990
PA
Arshad was then said to have transferred sensitive data from a secure, top secret computer to the phone before taking it home.
Once home, he went on to transfer the data from the phone to a hard drive connected to his personal home computer.
The defendant was then arrested - and his home was searched on September 22, 2022.
Arshad’s lawyer Nina Grahame KC told the court that he had admitted the offence on the "basis of recklessness".
The charge said: "Between August 23, 2022 and September 23, 2022 (he) did an unauthorised act in relation to a computer and at the time of doing the act knew that it was unauthorised; and the act caused, or created a significant risk of a material kind, this being damage to the national security of a country; 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."
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Mrs Justice McGowan has adjourned sentencing for all the charges until June 13
PAThe court also heard Arshad had previously admitted two charges of making an indecent photograph of a child in relation to a number of images found between September 7 and September 23, 2022.
Mrs Justice McGowan has adjourned sentencing for all the charges until June 13.
The judge ordered a pre-sentence report and granted Arshad continued bail with various conditions - one of which bars him from accessing the "dark web".
She told him: "I want you to understand because of your age I am making the request for the pre-sentence report in this case - but that does not mean there will not be a custodial sentence."
Cabinet Office guidance says that the "top secret" classification tier applies to "the most sensitive information assets that directly support or inform the national security of the UK or its allies and require extremely high assurance of protection from the most serious threats."
Such information must be protected via Secure Isolated Networks - a form of tech protection which ensures a computer network is physically isolated from other, unsecure networks.
"A compromise of top secret information could cause exceptionally grave damage," the Cabinet Office warns - and "could cause widespread loss of life or threaten the security or economic wellbeing of the UK or friendly nations".
As a result, public servants are explicitly told to not take top secret information home "under any circumstances".
