Ex-CIA employee Joshua Adam Schulte charged with leaking Vault 7 dumps

An Ex-CIA employee, Joshua Adam Schulte (29), has been charged with stealing classified national defense information and sharing Vault 7 dumps with WikiLeaks.

Yesterday, the Department of Justice announced that Schulte has been charged with 13 count indictment.

In middle May, both The New York Times and The Washington Post, revealed the name of the alleged source of the Vault 7 leak, the man who passed the secret documents to Wikileaks. According to his LinkedIn profile, Schulte worked for the NSA for five months in 2010 as a systems engineer, after this experience, he joined the CIA as a software engineer and he left the CIA in November 2016.

Schulte was identified a few days after WikiLeaks started leaking the precious dumps.

Schulte was arrested for possession of child pornography, he was charged on three counts of receipt, possession and transportation of child pornography in August 2017.

The man was released in September 2017, but in December he was arrested again for violating the conditions of his release.

“SCHULTE, 29, of New York, New York, is charged with one count each of (i) illegal gathering of national defense information, (ii) illegal transmission of lawfully possessed national defense information, (iii) illegal transmission of unlawfully possessed national defense information, (iv) unauthorized access to a computer to obtain classified information, (v) theft of Government property, (vi) unauthorized access of a computer to obtain information from a Department or Agency of the United States, (vii) causing transmission of a harmful computer program, information, code, or command, (viii) making material false statements to representatives of the FBI, (ix) obstruction of justice, (x) receipt of child pornography, (xi) possession of child pornography, (xii) transportation of child pornography, and (xiii) copyright infringement. ” reads the press release published by the DoJ.

According to the DoJ, Schulte used his access to CIA’s networks while working for the intelligence agency.

“Joshua Schulte, a former employee of the CIA, allegedly used his access at the agency to transmit classified material to an outside organization,” said Geoffrey S. Berman, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. “During the course of this investigation, federal agents also discovered alleged child pornography in Schulte’s New York City residence. We and our law enforcement partners are committed to protecting national security information and ensuring that those trusted to handle it honor their important responsibilities. Unlawful disclosure of classified intelligence can pose a grave threat to our national security, potentially endangering the safety of Americans.”

Schulte always denied the accusations for being involved in Vault 7 data leak, he believes that the authorities suspected him due to the fact that he had left the CIA a few months before the beginning of the data leak.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Vault 7, CIA)

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