Former NSA employee pleads guilty to stealing classified information

A former NSA employee has confessed to stealing classified information from his employer. Those stolen documents were then allegedly stolen from his own computer by Russian hackers, leaving NSA hacking tools on the street.

The New York Times reported this on the basis of a press release posted online by the US Department of Justice. Nghia Hoang Pho, 67, who is of Vietnamese origin but has become a naturalized American, has pleaded guilty to knowingly taking confidential information, both digital documents and paper.

According to The New York Times, there are suspicions that Pho’s data on his personal computer was subsequently stolen by Russian hackers. It is suspected that this in turn pushed NSA hacking tools into the public domain. The Russian hackers allegedly used an exploit in Kaspersky’s antivirus software, which was on Pho’s computer, to break in, government sources told The New York Times. Incidentally, it has not been confirmed that there is a connection between the hack on Pho’s computer and the leaking of the NSA hacking tools.

Pho will be sentenced on April 6 next year. There is a maximum prison sentence of 10 years for the offence. Two other former NSA employees have been arrested in connection with taking confidential information.

At the beginning of this year, it was revealed that an NSA employee had taken three-quarters of the hacking tools, although it was not about Pho. At that time, the so-called Shadowbrokers group had already started offering the hacking tools, which subsequently led to worldwide attacks with ransomware. It is still not clear who is part of the Shadowbrokers group.