A former software engineer for the Central Intelligence Agency has been sentenced to four decades behind bars following his conviction for the largest data breach in the agency’s history.
Joshua Adam Schulte was accused of espionage, computer hacking, making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and possession of child pornography. His sentencing comes after convictions rendered at trials that ended on March 9, 2020, July 13, 2022, and September 13, 2023.
District Judge Jesse M. Furman sentenced Schulte to 40 years in prison on Feb. 1.
"We will likely never know the full extent of the damage, but I have no doubt it was massive," said Furman in Manhattan federal court on Feb. 1.
Furman was found guilty of releasing classified information to WikiLeaks in 2017. The incident became known as the Vault 7 leak. The information revealed how the CIA used Android and Apple phones to conduct overseas spying operations and the agency’s efforts to use smartphones as listening devices.
“Joshua Schulte betrayed his country by committing some of the most brazen, heinous crimes of espionage in American history,” said United States District Attorney Damian Williams in a press release. “He caused untold damage to our national security in his quest for revenge against the CIA for its response to Schulte’s security breaches while employed there. When the FBI caught him, Schulte doubled down and tried to cause even more harm to this nation by waging what he described as an ‘information war’ of publishing top secret information from behind bars.”
“And all the while, Schulte collected thousands upon thousands of videos and images of children being subjected to sickening abuse for his own personal gratification,” Williams continued. “The outstanding investigative work of the FBI and the career prosecutors in this Office unmasked Schulte for the traitor and predator that he is and made sure that he will spend 40 years behind bars – right where he belongs.”
Schulte worked for the Center of Cyber Intelligence from 2012 to 2016 as a software developer. According to the Department of Justice, the multidisciplinary center “conducts offensive cyber operations: cyber espionage relating to terrorist organizations and foreign governments.” The information provided by the then-28-year-old was the largest data leak in the CIA’s history,
According to Courthouse News Service:With more than 7,000 pages, millions of lines of embedded computer code and several hundred attachments, the document dump … detailed how the agency uses malware to hack the iPhones, Android devices and Samsung smart televisions of private consumers.
Throughout the trove of agency materials, a variety of covert techniques, malware and programs used to collect audio and video streams live from their user's devices are given names worthy of a tawdry suspense novel. One such covert program exposed in the Vault 7 leak is Weeping Angel, which offers hackers a window into the private citizen's world by way of their Samsung smart televisions.
During his trial, Schulte argued that he had been a scapegoat for the FBI and the CIA. He said hundreds of people had access to the same information and could have perpetrated the leak.
"The government's case is riddled with reasonable doubt," he said, per NPR. "There's simply no motive here."
Schulte has been in prison since 2018, six months after WikiLeaks published the information.
