Former CIA Software Developer Sentenced To 40 Years In Prison For Confidential Data Breach To WikiLeaks

An ex-CIA software developer has been subjected to a whopping 40-year-long jail sentence, sparking shock on Thursday.

The man who goes by the name of Joshua Schulte received a four-decade-long sentencing for leaking high-profile and confidential data of the CIA to WikiLeaks. And for those who might not be aware, this is the name given to a massive offense and one of the worst data breaches done in history.

The Southern District of New York confirmed yesterday how the court’s decision was massive but a long time coming. Remember, it comes exactly eight years after we saw and heard the news about the developer stealing archive copies that were handed personally by him to WikiLeaks.

He was deemed guilty of the likes of espionage and hacking while generating false statements toward the FBI. Meanwhile, more shocking findings had to do with rolling out fake statements toward the FBI which is a major crime.

Schulte made use of unauthorized privileges from the administration in terms of copying CIA archives and then made attempts to hide his actions by changing the network and getting rid of plenty of log files along the way.

Schulte went on to give rise to a massive trove of CIA documents toward WikiLeaks that comes under the ownership of Julian Assange. He published the work under certain labels such as Vault 7 and Vault 8 that arose in 2017. These made use of operating systems like Tails and even Tor Browser to disguise the identities of those carrying out the act.

The developer was said to have betrayed his own nation with such crimes that the country’s history has ever witnessed. And when the FBI caught him in the act, he doubled down by adding how he wished to cause serious harm to the country by rolling out information wars regarding top secret data publishing taking place behind bars.

More details from the court’s decision added how he caused serious harm to America’s national security and risked people’s lives and those linked to the CIA. He persistently put out more efforts on this front, despite his arrest taking place.

The data leak incident was said to damage the CIA’s works related to foreign intelligence collection against America’s adversaries. It cost the governmental agency millions, as confirmed recently by the American Attorney’s Office.

During the search rolled out by the FBI in regards to Schulte’s home based in New York, we saw a series of government agents find thousands of encrypted pictures and videos featuring minors undergoing abuse and a wide range of other explicit themes as mentioned by a statement generated on Thursday.

As mentioned during Schulte’s sentencing, there is more information on how it comes after a series of legal trials finished during the years 2020, 2022, and 2023 so that in itself says a lot.

Photo: Digital Information World - AIgen

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