Intelligence Contractor Charged for Leaking Information

Intelligence Contractor Reality Leigh Winner of Augusta, Ga. was charged under the Espionage Act this week after printing out a copy of an intelligence file and mailing it out to an online news outlet The Intercept. The report detailed information on two cyberattacks done by Russia during the 2016 election. These attacks were meant to undermine Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and instill doubt that if she won it would be a fair democratic election, rather the election was rigged in her favor.

The first attack was made in August against a company that sells voter registration software to “obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions”.  This data obtained from the first attack helped launch the second attack which was made a few days before the election against 122 local election officials.

The attacks were done using a method called spear phishing which uses emails designed to look like official company emails with attachments and links that once opened will install malicious software onto computers. The email providers used for the attacks were the the popular Google Gmail and Microsoft’s Outlook.com.

The report contained references to an electronic voter identification system used by poll workers and sold by VR Systems. VR systems released a report confirming that they were alerted to the fake emails and immediately notified customers not to open the links or attachments. “We are only aware of a handful of our customers who actually received the fraudulent email and of those, we have no indication that any of them clicked on the attachment or were compromised as a result.”

The F.B.I immediately began investigating after The Intercept’s report was released. The National Security Agency (NSA) was able to detect that six people had printed out the report. Investigators searched into the computers of these six individuals to find out who has been in contact with The Intercept. Ms. Winner was the only one of the six who had been in email contact with the news outlet. She was arrested at her home in Augusta, Ga. And confessed to printing the intelligence file on May 5 and mailing it to The Intercept.

This is the first leak case under the Trump administration. The Obama administration had about 10 leak cases in the eight year presidency. Leak cases have become more common, not because leaks did not happen before, but now with the help of electronic trails, perpetrators are much easier to catch. The deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, praised the F.B.I.’s quick response. “Releasing classified material without authorization threatens our nation’s security and undermines public faith in government. People who are trusted with classified information and pledge to protect it must be held accountable when they violate that obligation,” he said.

Ms. Winner could face a sentence of up to 10 years in prison under the Espionage Act, though in cases of leaks in the past prison sentences have usually been one to three years.

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