When a CIA Hacker Goes Rogue

it's 2017 it's the day before the Super Bowl Beyonce announced she's expecting twins bat and bougie hits number one on the billboard charts and the whistleblowing platform Wikileaks begins sending a series of cryptic tweets what is Vault 7 this initial question is paired with a photograph of the global seed vault in Norway an area that has been the target of many conspiracy theories leaving viewers wondering what the connection is the next day another question is asked along with another photo this time of a Nazi Vault used to store gold during the 1940s this continues for

four more days each tweet posing another question along with another photo an engine test at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia fake newspaper covers of famous whistleblowers a stock image of a welder and lastly a photo of a woman mailing a letter reportedly taken by East Germany secret police during their surveillance operations after February 9th the Tweet stop online posters begin trying to decipher the meaning behind these seemingly unconnected photos and that initial question most believed it would be a continuation of the Hillary Clinton email releases which Wikileaks was known for some think it could

be connected to World Trade Center building 7 and a few even suggest that the tweets could be the work of the cryptographic puzzle organization sakata 3301 but it wouldn't be until almost a month later that Wikileaks would mention Vault 7 again this time with no warning Vault 7 year zero a torrent link to a set of encrypted files accessible only with a password that password a John F Kennedy quote released the following morning unveiled 8,761 files on hacking and surveillance techniques developed and used by the CIA making this the largest leak of classified intelligence documents

in history criminal investigation is underway in the US following the leak of some 8,000 documents uh that details the cia's technical capability to carry out hacking would like to thank the CIA for their G brand here smart fies WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange criticized the CIA for keeping the data in one place calling it incompetent is it clear to you Michael that this was an inside job absolutely this has to be an inside job you can surveil someone through their phones through their television sets and microwaves that turn into cameras Etc your name your phone number

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requires a security check and a key card because this building houses the Cyber Intelligence Division of the CIA on the ninth floor to another door that requires badge access lies the operation support Branch for this cyber Intelligence Division the OSB is considered the cia's hacker unit and only employs around a dozen people it is in this office on this private network not connected to the internet that the Vault 7 tools were developed and maintained meaning that this leak came from this room 20 minutes after Wikileaks tweets the password to those encrypted files it announces that

the planned press conference from wikil League's founder Julian Assange has been put on hold since his video streams are being hit offline within hours news outlets such as the guardian wired and the New York Times begin reporting on the release and researchers around the globe begin diving into the extensive documentation but we still haven't answered that initial question what exactly is Vault 7 the series of releases published from March to November alleged that the US consulant in Frankfurt Germany is a covert CIA hacking base used to attack Targets in Europe Asia and the Middle East

revealed that the CIA has a practice of stealing malware from foreign states such as Russia and using these in attacks to leave behind the digital fingerprint of the groups the attack techniques are stolen from essentially framing others for their operations and detailed how the CIA hoarded zerod day vulnerabilities the agency not only stockpiled these but also purchased them from private entities without disclosing the vulnerabilities to the software manufacturer now none of this is particularly surprising or unique it's a fair assumption that every nation state with a robust intelligence Network probably engages in similar activities countries

like Russia China Israel and North Korea have well documented histories of cyber Espionage and cyber warfare but the real highlight of the release were the tools developed by the CIA from 2008 to 2016 for conducting these attacks some of these tools include Hive scribbles fine dining Sonic screwdriver night skies and weeping angel Hive was a command and control framework used to manage malware implants on compromised systems a command and control framework allows an attacker or in this case the CIA to essentially communicate and send commands to malware they've implanted on a system I've allowed the

CIA to do all of this through websites that appeared ordinary to anybody who came across the connection it would appear to just be a normal link to maybe a software website when the underlying traffic would actually be extracting sensitive information from the targeted devices back to the CIA servers scribbles dub the Snowden stopper is a tool that embedded web Beacon tags into confidential documents that were likely to be stolen the purpose of this is to track access by whistleblowers and foreign spies it would generate invisible unique watermarks for Microsoft Office documents which when opened sent

information back to the CIA about the viewer fine dining a collection of malware leas applications that were disguised as legitimate programs agents could use these apps stored on a USB drive to infect the target's computer while appearing to just run normal software the list of decoy apps include VLC Google Chrome Opera and Firefox Libre office prey Skype 7zip the game 2048 and even some antivirus software Sonic Screwdriver was a tool that manipulated the firmware of Apple's Thunderbolt to ethernet adapters making them store and execute malicious code during a Max boot process this means it would

bypass security mechanisms like firmware passwords Tak taking control of the system before the operating system even loads and because the attacks Target the low-level firmware of the computer the malicious code would persist even after the operating system is completely reinstalled continuing with the Apple attack night skies works like a basic command and control system but it can also uniquely embed itself into the iTunes application this allows the CIA to Monitor and control not just the Mac but also any iPhone that synced with it and most famously weeping angel weeping angel was a software suite developed

in partnership with Britain's and I 5 that would allow Samsung TVs to be turned into listening devices even when they appear to be turned off this fake off mode would allow the TV to secretly record conversations store and exfiltrate audio without the user's knowledge effectively turning your TV into a listening device now these tools are just a handful of the entire collection there are dozens of others such as Fight Club and Ricky Bobby that are a little less unique the Vault 7 release also contains some mostly irrelevant but interesting notes such as one CIA employee

recommending their colleagues read Reddit to stay up toate on information a how-to guide on remaining undercover while overseas an entire page of Japanese emojis and documents suggesting that the CIA was exploring ways to infect the control systems used by modern Internet connected Vehicles the purpose of this wasn't explicitly stated but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations according to WikiLeaks the day after the leak the CIA releases a statement saying the American public should be deeply troubled by any disclosure designed to damage the intelligent community 's ability to protect America insisted

that they do not Target US citizens and said its activities comply fully with the US law and the Constitution Julian Assange finally manages to conduct a live press conference where he vets questions from media outlets and a few days later former CIA deputy director Mike moral says the information released by Wikileaks was on the cia's top secret Network so this has to be an inside job president Trump who had previously benefited from Wikileaks release of Hillary Clinton's emails was now in an awkward position when he was running for office he said they want to distract

us from Wikileaks it's been amazing what's coming out on Wikileaks Wikileaks I love Wikileaks but now he was more uh I know nothing about Wikileaks it's not my thing I know nothing really about him it's not my it's not my deal in life in fact it was this leak that led CIA director Mike Pompeo and other Trump Administration officials to allegedly plan the kidnapping and assassination of Julian Assange but now that we've answered what Vault 7 is now comes the question of why why why did whoever have access to these files feel the need to

give them to WikiLeaks or more importantly feel the need to make this information public when news outlets began picking up the release little by little this misconception emerged that the tool weeping angel was used to spy on millions of Americans this still persist even today but it's not true and the reason for that is simple the vast majority of tools leaked in Vault 7 are designed in a way that requires physical access to the Target devices at least once they reflect the needs of CIA agents in the field working with Target devices directly looking to

gather specific information the only real way this could be used to spy on the masses would be to infect the Samsung devices at the place they're manufactured or sometime before they arrive at the store you buy one at while this is certainly possible and it's believed that this is the way they infected the iPhones of specific targets doing this on a massive scale is unlikely and mostly a theory created by people who simply don't understand what these tools are capable of unlike the Snowden leaks these tools weren't used to spy on millions of everyday citizens

so outside of understanding what's possible by people looking to Target you there's no real tangible benefit American citizens get from having this information public on September 11th just hours after the towers went down a senator from Utah told reporters that the CIA had intercepted a phone call between bin lad and Associates discussing the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon while American citizens might have been glad to hear that that upset the white house because it tipped off the terrorists that the US government had been spying on them and the methods they used

to do do so which in turn burnt that method whoever leaked Vault 7 intentionally hindered National Security efforts and did so knowing that it could potentially stop operations that were aimed at protecting the public and they did that with very little actual benefit so why do it what was the real motive 6 days after Wikileaks publishes Vault 7 federal agents raid the apartment of Bloomberg software engineer Josh a Schult in his apartment they find a treasure Trove of electronic devices and digital media but here's the thing the FBI doesn't want to tip off SCH who's

currently at work that he's under surveillance as their Prime Suspect so instead of confiscating or copying anything off his devices they simply take photos of his apartment and leave 2 days later at 120 Park Avenue in Manhattan Schult clocks out of work and starts making his way back home but as soon as he leaves the building he's greeted by two FBI agents that introduce themselves and invite him to chat Schult is well aware of the ongoing investigation and agrees to cooperate so they head to a cafe not far from the building little does he know

as he sits down to talk about the Vault 7 leaks a quarter mile down the road a team of FBI agents are stationed outside his apartment ready to conduct a fullscale raid in 2011 fresh out of college in an NSA internship SCH began working for the agency as an engineer in the operation support branch in 2015 he was even made an administ tror for the cia's private developer Network known as Dev Lan which gave him the power to control access to the network and therefore access to the tools leaked in Vault 7 despite the serious

nature of the Branch's work building tools for CIA agents that were literally used in life or death situations the OSB was run more like a tech startup a little more laid-back than what you're probably picturing they used pop culture references for official CIA tools like Ricky Bobby gave each other office nicknames like dick move and even had fullscale Nerf gun fire fights in the office office Schult who was described by his co-workers as opinionated and a little rough around the edges seemed to thrive in this environment however things changed sometime in 2015 when a new

hire known as Amal decided he wasn't as comfortable with the atmosphere Amal was a little more professional didn't seem to like Schult or the Nerf gun firefights and even nicknamed Schult bald [ __ ] in October of 2015 AAL began complaining to an OSB supervisor that Schult was childish and dangerous in response Schult called them all derogatory and Abus saying a m had told him I wish you would die in a fiery car crash I want to piss on Your Grave Schult noted that words like that do little to Foster collaboration it wouldn't in there

though in March of 2016 Schult filed an official formal complaint with CIA officials after a mul reportedly told him I wish you were dead that's not a threat that's a promise Schult said he believed that this was a serious death threat and that he feared for his life the CIA security official in charge responded to the complaint by saying he couldn't play high school counil yeah the [ __ ] is wrong with you to this response made Schult angry he felt that the CIA wasn't taking his death threat seriously enough so he decided to go

higher up the ladder and complain to the director of cyber intelligence Bonnie says after a pointless meeting Bonnie decides the boys need to be separated so she orders them both to new desk far away from each other he then complains about the desk he's moved to and says Amal has been assigned to a better desk at this point Schult is furious whatever his goal was he's clearly not getting it so instead of trying to work within the agency's guidelines Schult goes down to the Virginia state courthouse and gets a restraining order against his CIA coworker

Amal the CIA goes in full damage control and activates something known as the threat management unit because now this internal issue was being played out in open court which for the CIA is unprecedented so the CIA decides to move both Schult and AAL to two separate branches altogether Schult responds by threatening to go public saying he could reach out to the media and have an article written titled CIA punishes employ for reporting office death threats regardless Schult tries to make the best of his situation and after relocating down to the eighth floor Schult tries to

continue work on one of the tools he had developed known as brutal kangaroo only defy that his access had been revoked due to his Branch change senior officials at the CIA had allowed him to copy the brutal kangaro tool for his own use Schult instead took control of the original tool and removed access by all other OSB members this led to him being stripped of his network administrator access and on November 10th 2016 he officially resigned from the CIA but was this really enough to leak all the CIA tools was a so-called Patriot so upset

that he would expose some of the most sensitive secrets of his own country as the agents began to interview Schult these questions lingered according to the agents during the interview he downplayed the severity of the leak saying the initial Vault 7 release didn't contain any source code so it wasn't too severe said he couldn't imagine anybody from his former office giving that information to WikiLeaks and suggested the agents look for spikes of activity in the network which would indicate copying of documents he also informed them that earlier that day during his lunch break he went

home and printed out travel documents and grabbed his diplomatic CIA issued passport because he was coincidentally planning to fly down to Mexico with his brother he was supposed to return his passport once he resigned from the agency but never did as the interview wrapped up the agents presented Schult with a subpoena and a search warrant They seized a cell phone and they all head back to Schultz apartment a block away to begin conducting the fullscale search [Music] in the weeks following the raid the FBI begins examining Schultz's personal devices which were all now in their

possession while reviewing his desktop computer FBI agents come across an encrypted directory the directory is around 54 GB in size due to the directory being encrypted the agents aren't sure what exactly is inside but they have an idea on Schultz's personal cell phone which is now in their possession there's a Notes app with a bunch of random passwords and plain text one of them unlocks the container and reveals 50 GB of illegal pornography involving minors they also managed to find some IRC chat logs discussing the downloading and storing of this material and find a photograph

on Schult cell phone of him sexually assaulting a passed out woman in August Schult is woken up by a dozen federal agents banging on his apartment door who arrest him on sex crime charges they had not yet indicted him on anything related to The Vault 7 releases when he hears that the government is trying to keep him in custody he objects and says the crime I am charged with is in fact a nonviolent victimless crime as Schultz sits in the Manhattan jail waiting for trial a block away FBI agents working out of the Manhattan field

office need to collect the Vault 7 release for their investigation but there's a problem the documents leaked are still classified even though they're publicly available FBI agents task with collecting the Wikileaks release head down to a local Best Buy purchase a brand new laptop and then go to a Starbucks to use their free public Wi-Fi to download the entirety of the class ified CIA documents in May 2018 news finally breaks on Joshua Schultz arrest but he's still not indicted on anything related to The Vault 7 release with the New York Times headlining him as a

suspect pretty much immediately online posters Wikileaks Advocates and just general Skeptics begin picking apart the allegations against them by the FBI regarding the child abuse material like the old Chappelle bit just sprinkle some crack on them it's like just sprinkle some I you like young allegations on him get the public to hate him from the jump so he doesn't turn into some whistleblowing hero it's a compelling Theory or at least it would be if Joshua Schult wasn't also a bit of a [ __ ] idiot instead of playing into this obvious Theory many would believe

schults defense for having this material on his computer was that he ran a server in college that was essentially open to all of his friends and he simply didn't know what files other users had uploaded on it the next month the government finally indict sh for the Wikileaks releases with 10 new charges ranging from illegal Gathering ing of National Defense information and theft of government property to obstruction of justice and making false statements with the trial for these charges commencing in early 2020 in the meantime Schult had gotten quite used to prison he had found

a way to hotwire the light switch in his cell to act as a cell phone charger gotten a Contraband cell phone and created social media accounts dedicated to proving his innocence he sent journalists classified information pretending to be other people and even reached out to WikiLeaks to publish 25 pages of his prison ramblings which consisted of him saying he was going to bring down the justice system crying about house arrest and making fun of people who pretended to be Muslim or Jewish in jail to get better food he later converted to Islam things seem to

be working out okay for Schult until October when 50 FBI agents and a cell phone sniffing dog raid the jail take his cell phone and throw his ass in solitary confinement Schult would later tell a judge he was being tortured in jail claiming the officials at the jail subjected him to cruel and unusual punishment and wrote terrorists receive better treatment in Guan Bay I have seen the footage myself Schult would stay in solitary confinement well until his 2020 trial as a trial the prosecution provided evidence that after being stripped of his administrative privileges due to

the kangaroo incident Schultz still kept a secret back door to the OSB network and on April 20th 2016 Schult accessed that back door using the password King Josh 3000 while logged in he accessed one specific backup the March 3rd 2016 backup of the OSB tools he then attempted to scrub his log files and restore the network as it turns out the Vault 7 release on Wikileaks to this day is a perfect match to that March third backup but despite this and some more circumstantial evidence Schult was only convicted on two counts contempt of court and

making false statements to the FBI the reason for this seems to be that Schultz's defense attorney did a great job at sewing doubt in the government's case and also that the technicalities of the entire case were [ __ ] confusing especially to random jurors who might not even own a computer so the judge declared a mistrial with the retrial scheduled for 2022 in the meantime SCH decided he could defend himself so he fired the defense attorney that managed to get him a hung jury and began spending the next two years learning how to properly defend

himself in court he was convicted on all charges during his sentence hearing he allegedly ranted for 29 minutes calling the jail he was housed in New York's own owitz and comparing himself to Nelson Mandela he was sentenced to 40 years in prison when news about Schult first started hitting the media Patrick Keef from The New Yorker talked to a couple of his former classmates and what he found was that Schult had a history of being incredibly edgy and sexually deviant always touching people when asked not to and would even go as far as to draw

swastikas in Jewish students yearbooks not because he was an actual Nazi or racist but really just because he liked pissing people off it's hard to imagine that the most powerful intelligence agency in history didn't know about this or knew about about it and still hired this guy the CIA may have never even realized that these tools were stolen if Wikileaks hadn't publicly released them if all it takes is one Rogue operative with a history of problematic Behavior to dismantle their entire system how secure is National Security really [Music]