BALDONI AFFAIR: ACN VERSUS ACCENTURE

FAKE OUTSOURCING AND SCAPEGOATS

In recent days, the name of Nadia Gullo has gone viral among Italian cybersecurity officers. It is rumored that behind the sensational "resignation" of Roberto Baldoni from the top of the newly formed Agency for National Cybersecurity (ACN) there is the Operating Manual (Implementing measure #82) "Implementation plan of the national cybersecurity strategy 2022-2026" (1 ).

Michele Pinassi, coordinator of the Computer Security Incident Response Team of the University of Siena (one of the various academic-IT offshoots of the ACN), analyzing the properties of the pdf, traced the name of the author, Nadia Gullo, an analyst/consultant by Accenture. Checking now is just a waste of time since the Agency has taken steps to cancel the old pdf with her name. The fact is that within a few hours an uproar was unleashed, between those who feared regulatory capture or a risk to national security and those who, between the lines, attributed poor computer skills to civilians. Yet, the US-Irish multinational operating in the strategic consultancy and outsourcing sector is no stranger to the world of Information Warfare.

In reality, precisely to prevent cases of whistleblowing such as that of Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards (2), not only within public bodies but also within the industrial supply, logistics, and consultancy distribution companies (Accenture, EY, Deloitte, KPMG, Amazon, Fastenal), the practice has spread of hiring people close to the world of defense, undercover soldiers or at least people trained at universities in the sector and with various family connections or linked to senior officers. In some States, this strategy is not due only to a strategic calculation, but is also the result of necessity, either due to the shortage of further job opportunities or due to endemic corruption in which the pantouflage still manages to bypass rules and sanctions.

Now, we don't know exactly the background of the author in question, but the University where she trained, Messina, is certainly not like the Link University, the University of International Studies of Rome, the University of Turin, the Tuscia University, the Oriental University of Naples or the Kore University of Enna - all academic realities extremely close to NATO and the military circles. Using the Gibiru search engine, you come across her 2015 degree thesis, which focused on the law of same-sex couples in Italy. It is not a thesis that anyone coming from the defense world would be authorized to write, and the fact that she graduated in the 2015-2016 academic year also confirms this deduction. The University of Messina began collaborating with the Italian Navy starting from 2015, and only in the field of Biological and Environmental Sciences, joining the Parthenope of Naples, which is, in several respects, the first scientific and marine branch of the military academia (3). In those years, the Law Department of Messina was in no way connected to the Ministry of Defence, so much so that analysts or NATO officials from the Sicilian University are not so frequently seen on LinkedIn.

A HARMLESS DOCUMENT

Even by scanning the Accenture employee's Facebook profile, there are no details that lead us to think of her past in the military sector, although there are several Ministry of Defense employees with this rather rare surname on the web. In any case, even if she were a civilian, it must be emphasized that the "pure" civilians of the large strategic sectors are necessarily forced to follow lines dictated from above, even more so in a war context like the present one. Of course, her position does not allow her to draw up documents on her initiative, documents that are not commissioned and examined line by line by high rankings. Therefore, it is unclear how this woman could have contributed to "softening" the geopolitical plans toward Russia and China, as implied in some articles or posts. Especially since the Operating Manual, drafted adequately, is a mere schedule of various cybernetic projects: technological scrutiny, promotion of cryptography, development of protection capacities for national infrastructures, training, and application of Key Performance Indicators. There are certainly no state secrets in the document, and the only thing that emerges is that some projects will be implemented in 2025, leaving some possible vulnerabilities uncovered. But the whole thing is written vaguely enough to be irrelevant to any Eastern Bloc hacker. After all, there is nothing that a good Russian hacker doesn't already intuit, and even the temporal dilution of the projects is not surprising, given the huge costs of the moment. As for Accenture's hidden hand mustn't be so hidden given that Accenture, together with Tim, has been managing some sectors of national cybersecurity for at least a year (4). Even the massive army of public sector planners and ghostwriters comes as no surprise.

Therefore, a small, yet another Italian skirmish emerges for replacing an armchair. Cyber-knife throwers eager to grab a slice of the pie and insignificant matters magnified in a melodramatic way only demonstrate how meritocracy and logic are pleonastic details in today's Italy. Meanwhile, Prefect Bruno Frattasi has become the new director of the ACN, and the era of Profs unrelated to the world of Defense is hastily coming to an end, as it had begun.

References:

1- https://www.acn.gov.it/documents/ACN%20Manuale%20Operativo%20implementazione%20misura-82.pdf

2- https://cryptome.org/2021/06/edwards-complaint.pdf

3- https://www.marina.difesa.it/media-cultura/Notiziario-online/Pagine/20150525_messina.aspx

4- https://www.analisidifesa.it/2021/11/accenture-e-tim-si-impongono-nella-gara-cybersecurity-indetta-da-consip/

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