Secret SAS hacker squad has cover blown after MoD post job advert online
24 August 2021, 06:50 | Updated: 24 August 2021, 07:10
A secret SAS hacker squad was made public after defence officials accidentally published a job advert with full details of the role.
The secretive Computer Network Operations (CNO) Exploitation Unit had its cover blown on the MoD's external job ad website.
Any "extraordinary talented electronics" engineers interested in the £33,000-a-year vacancy would have seen the address and phone number for SAS barracks.
Based in Hereford, the £33k-per-year post was to be filled by an "extraordinary talented electronics engineer" [sic] to "work alongside some of the best scientists and engineers within defence and will be tasked with delivering prototype solutions directly to the soldiers and officers of a unique and specialised military unit."
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A telephone number in the advert, uncovered by researcher Alan Turnbull, of the Secret Bases website, is for the SAS Barracks at Credenhill, Hereford, and the postcode links to the SAS’s Pontrilas training area.
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It is also described as a ‘small military unit that specialises in the provision of novel and groundbreaking science and technology prototypes’ for military operations and mostly consists of ‘civil servants who are Defence’s most talented scientists and engineers’.
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However, the Ministry of Defence which posted the job on its website soon realised the blunder and took down the advert, which revealed a team within the special forces.
It said the job is to "work alongside some of the best scientists and engineers" to deliver "solutions directly to the soldiers and officers of a unique and specialised military unit," MailOnline reports.
The unit itself was referred to as MAB5 which is thought to be a codename for UK Special Forces tasked with hacking for the SAS.
According to researcher Alan Turnbull, of the Secret Bases website, a telephone number provided for applicants was for the SAS Barracks at Credenhill, Hereford, and a postcode for the SAS’s Pontrilas training area.
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Over a 37-hour week, the computer engineer would provide "rapid solutions" to SAS soldiers to give them an "operational advantage over their increasingly wide-ranging and technically advanced adversary".
Contact details for a lieutenant-colonel who received a medal in 2013 for outstanding service "within the Special Forces", were included at the bottom of the page.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "We do not comment on Special Forces activity."
