Compliance Management, Threat Management, Vulnerability Management

Former CIA software engineer id’ed as suspect in Vault 7 leaks

The former CIA software engineer believed to have leaked the CIA's Vault 7 hacking tools is already behind bars at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, after being indicted for possessing child pornography. 

29-year-old Joshua Adam Schulte has yet to be charged with sharing classified information published on WikiLeaks in early 2017, but he has been the subject of an investigation into the leak since at least March of last year. A search warrant application at that time said Schulte was suspected of “distribution of national defense information,” which eventually yielded “N.S.A. and C.I.A. paperwork,” the New York Times cited agents as saying during a court hearing. 

WikiLeaks initially released what it called the CIA's "Year Zero," a trove of 8,761 documents and files allegedly from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Va.

In a press release and analysis, WikiLeaks said the leaked documents were selected from an even larger assortment of files, nicknamed Vault 7, all of which would be released over time. The files showed the breadth of hacking tools at the CIA's disposal, including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. WikiLeaks continued to release the tools over time. 

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