Feds Identify Suspect in CIA Hacking Tools Leak
- by Kelli Lowe
- in Global Media
- — May 16, 2018
The Federal Bureau of Investigation suspects that a former Central Intelligence Agency employee separately charged with possessing child pornography had a role in the unauthorized release of a trove of CIA hacking tools to the WikiLeaks website past year, according to a court transcript.
Whoever leaked the information apparently sent it to WikiLeaks, where it was published under the name "Vault 7". Hopefully more information will come out. His lawyers maintain he had nothing to do with the Vault 7 leaks, and he has not been charged with any crimes related to the case.
It's unclear why Schulte has not been charged or cleared in the breach.
The Washington Post first reported on Schulte's relation to the case. They conducted a number of search warrants on the defendant's residence.
At a January hearing on child pornography charges filed against Schulte, an assistant USA attorney in the Southern District of NY said the government conducted several search warrants on Schulte's home. That includes the fact they he is believed to have used software called Tor, which allows users to communicate and transmit information over the Internet anonymously, and the fact he was planning a vacation to Cancun, Mexico.
Despite searching the suspect's NY apartment, prosecutors say they now lack the evidence to charge Schulte.
Interesting that they can't get charges for the leak against him, even though he has been in a Manhattan jail since September for the child pornography charges.
He has plead not guilty to the charges.
Schulte is reportedly being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.
However despite months of investigation, prosecutors have been unable to bring charges against Schulte for the leak. But he has argued that anywhere from 50 to 100 people had access to that server, which Schulte, now 29, designed several years ago to share movies and other digital files. During his time at CIA, Schulte was employed at National Clandestine Service (NCS) as a Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T) Intelligence Officer.
Schulte's father, Roger, said he was scared to death. The government immediately had enough evidence to establish that he was a target of that investigation.
Schulte worked for five months at the NSA and then for over six years at the Central Intelligence Agency before leaving in November 2016 to work at Bloomberg as a software engineer, according to his LinkedIn profile.
