Anonymous sources speaking to Reuters said late Thursday that Edward Snowden was able to collect all the material that he's been leaking over the past few months by convincing “20 to 25” of his coworkers to hand over their login credentials and passwords.

Snowden, the former NSA contractor who was stationed in Hawaii before escaping to Hong Kong and then Russia after he disclosed confidential information, used his coworkers' logins to access at least some of the documents that have drawn international attention to the nefarious activities of the spy agency he worked for.

The employees who allegedly gave Snowden their login information “were identified, questioned, and removed from their assignments,” according to Reuters, quoting “a source close to several US government investigations into the damage caused by the leaks.” Snowden apparently told his fellow employees that the credentials “were needed for him to do his job as a computer systems administrator.”

As Ars noted last month, the NSA base in Hawaii where Snowden worked had also failed to install an “anti-leak” software program built by Raytheon, which the agency had purchased for its outposts nationwide to prevent an “insider threat.” And back in 2009, Snowden's superiors at his former post with the CIA sent him home from Geneva because they suspected he "was trying to break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to have access.”

While it is unclear whether the coworkers who gave Snowden access to their credentials were fired or simply given other duties, it seems obvious that there was a culture of naivety among contractors at the Hawaii post.

As Steven Aftergood, a secrecy expert with the Federation of American Scientists, told Reuters, "In the classified world, there is a sharp distinction between insiders and outsiders. If you've been cleared and especially if you've been polygraphed, you're an insider and you are presumed to be trustworthy.”

Reuters' sources also said that US government officials believe they know how much data Snowden could have accessed, but they are not sure of the full scope of what he did access. Needless to say, there will almost certainly be many more leaks coming down the line.