Former CIA Accused of Leaking Secret Hacking Tools to WikiLeaks

CIA for Hacking

On Monday, a federal judge in New York opened the trial of a former CIA software engineer who was convicted of stealing a vast cache of confidential hacking and equipment of the agency and of revealing them to a WikiLeaks informant website.

Whilst the jury could not issue a judgment on the stealing and dissemination of classified CIA information on eight occasions, ex-CIA Joshua Schulte was found guilty on two charges of contempt for the trial and made false statements to the FBI prosecutors.

Schulte’s attorneys demanded a mistrial in this case last month, arguing that the plaintiffs had denied proof that might exonerate their client in the Manhattan Federal Court’s four-week phase.

As a part of this theoretically, judges have not reached a unanimous agreement on the most severe charges regarding Schulte since last week.

Joshua Schulte Schulte, who developed hacking tools and software that could get into adverse machines for both the CIA and the NSA, was detained in August 2017 and initially charged with child pornography production and distribution.

However, U.S. authorities later in 2018 announced new charges against Schulte for stealing and releasing to Wikileaks more than 8,000 CIA records confidential, which then disclosed classified information on the so-called “Vault 7” leaks.

Vault 7 was the most significant disclosure in the history of the intelligence agency, with various information detailing the hidden electronic weapons and hacking methods that the U.S. government. They have used for tracking or breaking into devices, mobile phones, televisions, webcams, video streams, and other networks worldwide.

At the next hearing, the court will address the next steps in the case later this month. In the meantime, Schulte will still conduct a further child pornography case when the allegations are not entirely mediated, and a maximum sentence of 20 years has been levied.

A separate report released just last week reported that the CIA was behind an 11-year hacking operation involving a range of Chinese industry and government departments.
Investigators have also accused the CIA on the grounds of parallels between the methods and activities that are published in the Vault 7 report and the cyber attack techniques used.

Mark Funk
Mark Funk is an experienced information security specialist who works with enterprises to mature and improve their enterprise security programs. Previously, he worked as a security news reporter.