Former CIA Software Engineer Receives 40-year Sentence for Leaking Secrets to WikiLeaks

Well, blimey! You won’t believe this right corker from across the pond. It turns out, a Yank bloke who used to be a software engineer for the Central Intelligence Agency (you know, the CIA) found himself in a real pickle for nicking a huge pile of classified information from the agency. Crikey, that wasn’t the only grotty thing he was up to — he was also charged with possessing some rather unsavoury child abuse imagery. Can you believe it?

OK, get this: the chap’s name is Joshua Schulte. A few years back, in July 2022, he managed to send some classified materials to that whistleblowing group WikiLeaks (heard of ’em, right?) in a massive data spillage the press snappily named ‘the Vault 7 leak’. Not exactly the sort of thing to make you popular at the office Christmas do, let’s put it that way.

And you’d think that’d be dodgy enough, but to add insult to injury, this bloke Schulte was also convicted of hoodwinking FBI agents, which apparently is rather frowned upon over there in The States. All told he was found guilty of four counts each of espionage and computer hacking, plus one count of telling porkies to the Feds.

Now, the Yanks don’t muck about when it comes to discipline. After an intense hoo-ha in court last August, a US district judge by the name of Jesse Furman handed down a sentence of 40 years in clink to Mr. Schulte. And you thought your mum was strict! The judge could have hit him with a life sentence, which was what the prosecutor was angling for. But instead, Mr. Schulte got four decades of porridge to mull over his ghastly actions.

And there it is, me old mucker: a real-life, no-kidding cautionary tale from the world of cybersecurity. Whether you’re on this side of the pond, or that, there are some clear rules: don’t sneak about nicking classified info, don’t try to mug off the Feds and for the love of all that’s good, steer clear of anything that could land you a booking at her Majesty’s pleasure. So, take this as a gentle reminder not to get up to any of the nefarious activities our friend Schulte got embroiled in. It’s just not cricket, is it?

by Parker Bytes