Former CIA employee convicted of the largest data leak in agency’s history 

A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee accused of carrying out the largest data leak in the agency’s history and handing it over to WikiLeaks was convicted in federal court on Wednesday. 

Joshua Schulte was convicted on Wednesday in a Manhattan federal court on eight espionage charges and one obstruction charge. 

Schulte, 33, was a computer engineer at the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence. For his job at the agency, Shulte created tools that could steal data undetected from computers. 

The engineer had access "some of the country's most valuable intelligence-gathering cyber tools used to battle terrorist organizations and other malign influences around the globe," US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said on Wednesday.

"When Schulte began to harbor resentment toward the CIA, he covertly collected those tools and provided them to WikiLeaks, making some of our most critical intelligence tools known to the public—and therefore, our adversaries," Williams added.

Schulte’s beef with the CIA started in 2015 when he had a feud with a co-worker and management that ended up with him filing a restraining order against the co-worker. As a result, both Schulte and the co-worker were transferred. 

He then fought with the agency because CIA officials wanted to hire a contractor to build a tool similar to what he was making, adding to his resentment towards the agency. 

One year later, Schulte was using his tool to steal source codes and cyber tools and handed them over to WikiLeaks while completely getting rid of all of the evidence. The engineer allegedly leaked 8,761 documents to harm the agency. 

Schulte quit his job in November 2016. By the following March, WikiLeaks published some of the information Schulte had handed them, referred to as “Vault 7.”

He was arrested in August 2017 over child pornography charges but was later indicted on charges related to the data leak. As a result, Schulte is now facing decades in prison. 

"Schulte was aware that the collateral damage of his retribution could pose an extraordinary threat to this nation if made public, rendering them essentially useless, having a devastating effect on our intelligence community by providing critical intelligence to those who wish to do us harm," Williams added Wednesday.

"Today, Schulte has been convicted for one of the most brazen and damaging acts of espionage in American history."