Ex-CIA Official Allegedly Leaked CIA’s Secret Hacking Tools To WikiLeaks

Recently, on Monday in New York, a federal judge has announced the verdict in the case of a former CIA software engineer who was blamed for stealing a massive trove of the agency’s detailed secret hacking tools and leaking 8000 classified CIA documents to the well-known whistleblower WikiLeaks, under the name “Vault 7”.

When the jury was inadequate to give a judgment on eight counts of the crime and transmission of CIA’s private documents, it did get ex-CIA Joshua Schulte guilty on two counts of contempt of court and presenting false reports to the FBI investigators.

Thus, on March 9, 2020, a federal judge condemned Joshua Schulte of two charges of abusing the court and presenting false statements against FBI agents, as we said before.

But, after four weeks of trial, there was not a clear proof that Schulte gave information after eight weeks of trials, including ‘theft of private information from the CIA,’ which should have been the main issue.

Yes! the jury did find Schulte chargeable on two counts of presenting false statements to investigators and contempt of court, reads NYTimes report.

However, the failure to give a unanimous approval on the most severe charges of revealing classified information was a vital blow to the government’s case.

Hence, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York refused to comment on this matter.

After that, during a trial that lasted more than a month, prosecutors characterized Schulte as a disgruntled employee who turned on revenge after his bosses abandoned to take his side in a conflict with a CIA co-worker.

The juror indicated last week that they were having difficulty apprehending a unanimous agreement on all of the charges.

Thus, the judge dropped one juror who showed she might have been studying about the case outside of discussions, which the judge had forbidden.

However, the Juror later stated that the government had displeased to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Joshua Schulte presented the hacking tools to WikiLeaks.

Vault 7 Leak

As Vault 7 was the most significant leak of detailed information in the intelligence agency’s history.

That revealed the CIA’s undercover cyber-weapons and spying methods that the United States government applied to monitor or crack into computers, mobile phones, televisions, webcams, video streams, and more networks worldwide.

Therefore, the court will operate the next hearing later this month to review the further steps to be taken in the case.

Meantime, Joshua Schulte will also go over a separate trial for the child-pornography case, where the charges have not been fully settled, but provide a 20-year maximum sentence.

However, last week in a separate report printed, a Chinese cybersecurity company blamed the CIA for being after an 11-year-long hacking operation that targeted various Chinese industries and government companies.

The Researchers also accused the CIA based upon the connections between the tools and exploits flowed in the Vault 7 archive and the tools utilized on the cyberattacks.

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Read More:

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