A Swedish man used a multitude of forged credentials and a fake school diploma to join the Swedish military, where he maintained the ruse for eighteen years and eventually attained the rank of Major, according to Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. The man had been kicked from the Swedish Army Forces’ officer training program for lying about his grades, but he managed to join the army anyway through a combination of falsified documents and social engineering.
“The fake officer was able to pursue a career within the Armed Forces,” Dagens Nyheter states. “It seems like he did this by simply stating that he had the qualifications and education needed for different positions. No-one seems to have questioned or checked the information he gave.”
During his time in the military, the man held a variety of jobs in the Swedish army’s intelligence service, where he obtained high-level security clearances. At one point, he was one of the agency’s points of contact for Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). He also worked for three years at NATO’s military headquarters in Belgium, where he worked with the organization’s classified Afghanistan Mission Network.
After that, he worked as a commander in the Swedish Coast Guard between 2016 and 2018. In 2018, the Coast Guard discovered he had forged his diploma and driving license, and they reported him to the army. This report was ignored for a full year, and only came to light after the man had been selected to serve as chief of staff for Sweden’s UN peacekeeping force in Mali.
Despite the man’s high security clearances, Gen. Micael Byden, the head of Sweden's Armed Forces, said on Thursday that the man doesn’t appear to have disseminated any classified information.
“This is definitely serious,” Byden said. “This should not be possible and we have to examine this process.”
This looks more like a case of eccentricity bordering on madness than it does an attempt to compromise an organization, but consider: this gentleman was able to con his colleagues for almost two decades with a story concocted out of thin air. Suppose someone like this, someone with malice and not just wild fantasy in their heart, were to approach your organization. Would you and your people be ready to detect the fabulous fraud? The incident demonstrates the importance of proper security protocols and well-trained employees. New-school security awareness training can enable your employees to constantly be on the lookout for security threats.
Dagens Nyheter has the story: https://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/swedish-armed-forces-in-crisis-after-revelation-of-fake-officer/
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