Security News
A just-released report on the 2016 Central Intelligence Agency data breach, which led to the Vault 7 document dump on WikiLeaks, blames "Woefully lax" security by the nation's top spy agency. The report outlined various security issues discovered in the CCI. For instance, while CCI's DevLAN network had been certified and accredited, CCI had not worked to develop or deploy user activity monitoring or "Robust" server audit capabilities for the network, according to the report.
The FBI claimed to have found an "Encrypted container" with child abuse imagery files tucked beneath three layers of password protection on Schulte's PC. The FBI accused Schulte of maintaining lousy security, saying that each layer was unlocked using passwords Schulte previously used on one of his cellphones. The mistrial is embarrassing: prosecutors spent years pulling the case together, and they devoted four weeks of testimony in an effort to portray Schulte as a vindictive and disgruntled employee who put US security at risk by leaking information on how the CIA spied on foreign adversaries.
Joshua Schulte, the CIA employee standing trial for leaking the Wikileaks Vault 7 CIA hacking tools, maintains his innocence. All this raises a question, though: just how bad is the CIA's security that it wasn't able to keep Schulte out, even accounting for the fact that he is a hacking and computer specialist? And the answer is: absolutely terrible.
A former CIA software engineer accused of stealing a massive trove of the agency's hacking tools and handing it over to WikiLeaks was convicted of only minor charges Monday, after a jury deadlocked on the more serious espionage charges against him. Joshua Schulte, who worked as a coder at the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, was convicted by a jury of contempt of court and making false statements after a four-week trial in Manhattan federal court that offered an unusual window into the CIA's digital sleuthing and the team that designs computer code to spy on foreign adversaries.
The extraordinary trial of a former CIA sysadmin accusing of leaking top-secret hacking tools to WikiLeaks has ended in a mistrial. Some of those motions will ask for information from the prosecution that was kept from her during the trial, most controversially the case of "Michael," a co-worker of Schulte who was put on administrative leave by the CIA when evidence emerged linking him to the theft of the Vault 7 hacking tools.
A federal judge in New York on Monday declared a mistrial in the case of a former CIA software engineer who was accused of stealing a massive trove of the agency's classified hacking and tools and leaking it to WikiLeaks whistleblower website. Schulte, who designed hacking tools and malware for both the CIA and NSA to break into adversaries computers, was arrested in August 2017 and initially charged with possession and transportation of child pornography.
A federal judge in New York on Monday declared a mistrial in the case of a former CIA software engineer who was accused of stealing a massive trove of the agency's classified hacking and tools and leaking it to WikiLeaks whistleblower website. Schulte, who designed hacking tools and malware for both the CIA and NSA to break into adversaries computers, was arrested in August 2017 and initially charged with possession and transportation of child pornography.
The fate of the man accused of leaking top-secret CIA hacking tools - software that gave the American spy agency access to targets' phones and computer across the world - is now in the hands of a jury. Joshua Schulte stands accused of stealing the highly valuable materials directly from the CIA's innermost sanctum and slipping them to WikiLeaks to share with the rest of the planet.
The Chinese company claims it's aware of attacks launched by the CIA between September 2008 and June 2019. "In the CIA's attack against Chinese aviation organizations and scientific research institutions, we found that attackers mainly targeted system developers in these sectors to carry out the campaigns," Qihoo said in an English-language blog post.
A software engineer on trial in the largest leak of classified information in CIA history was "Prepared to do anything" to betray the agency, federal prosecutors said Monday as a defense attorney argued the man had been scapegoated for a breach that exposed secret cyberweapons and spying techniques. A Manhattan jury heard conflicting portrayals of Joshua Schulte, a former CIA coder accused of sending the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks a large portion of the agency's computer hacking arsenal - tools the agency had used to conduct espionage operations overseas.