A German court Tuesday sentenced a former NATO employee to seven years in jail for spying after the IT expert copied secret data in order to sell it to a foreign intelligence service.

The 61-year-old man, identified only as Manfred K., had worked for the transatlantic military alliance at the US airbase of Ramstein in Germany but left his job after a dispute.

“The disclosure of the files would allow a potential enemy of NATO to gain access to the secret network of NATO,” the court found. . . .

The man copied passwords for NATO computer systems, server locations and other information that would have enabled a cyber attack, the court in the western city of Koblenz found. . . .

He was been in detention since his arrest in August 2012.

The data were the “crown jewels” and “operative heart” of the system and would have allowed a foreign power to launch a cyber attack with “devastating impact”, said presiding judge Andreas Voelpel, according to national news agency DPA.  (via Deborah Cole)

Image: NATO headquarters (photo: SHAPE/NATO)