The CIA’s classified hacking tools were exposed in 2017.
, “Today’s verdict affirms that maintaining the security of our nation’s cyber capabilities is of the utmost importance. It’s critical to the security of the American people, and it’s critical to our advantage against adversaries abroad. As set forth in the trial, unauthorized disclosures not only jeopardize US personnel and operations, but also equip our adversaries with tools and information to do us harm.
The article details Operations Support Branch , where Schulte worked and reportedly built hacking tools by quickly turning prototypes into actual exploits that could monitor or steal information from the targeted person’s devices. It reports that investigators obtained evidence against Schulte through his own lapses in personal security, like storing passwords on his phone that could be used to access his encrypted storage.
It even goes into the trouble investigators had obtaining the Vault 7 documents — they remained classified despite being leaked and publicly available on the internet, leading FBI officials to download the cache over Wi-Fi at a Starbucks to a freshly purchased laptop that immediately became officially classified, stored in a supervisor’s office, and only accessible with Top Secret clearance.
Additional charges accusing him directly of stealing classified national defense information and sending it to WikiLeaks were filed later. In 2020, the government’s first attempt at prosecuting Schulte ended in a mistrial as a jury convicted him on contempt of court charges as well as lying to FBI investigators but couldn’t agree on the rest.
That spurred the second trial that just ended, where Schulte opted to represent himself. The charges he was convicted on are all specifically related to gathering, stealing, and transmitting classified information and obstruction of justice for lying to investigators about it. He has not yet been sentenced, pending the resolution of the other charges he still faces for possessing and transporting child pornography.
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