Vault 7 is a series of documents that WikiLeaks began to publish on 7 March 2017, detailing the activities and capabilities of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files, dating from 2013 to 2016, include details on the agency's software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs, web browsers (including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera), and the operating systems of most smartphones (including Apple's iOS and Google's Android), as well as other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux. A CIA internal audit identified 91 malware tools out of more than 500 tools in use in 2016 being compromised by the release. The tools were developed by the Operations Support Branch of the C.I.A.
The release of Vault 7 led the CIA to redefine WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service.” In July 2022 former CIA software engineer Joshua Schulte was convicted of leaking the documents to WikiLeaks.
History
During January and February 2017, the United States Justice Department was negotiating through Julian Assange's attorney Adam Waldman for immunity and safe passage for Assange to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and to travel to the United States both to discuss risk minimization of future WikiLeaks releases including redactions and to testify that Russia was not the source for the WikiLeaks releases in 2016. In mid February 2017, Waldman, who was pro bono, asked Senator Mark Warner who was co-chairman of the United States Senate Intelligence Committee if he had any questions to ask Assange. Warner contacted FBI Director James Comey and told Waldman "stand down and end the negotiations with Assange," with which Waldman complied. However, David Laufman who was Waldman's counterpart with the Justice Department replied, "That's B.S. You're not standing down and neither am I." According to Ray McGovern on 28 March 2017, Waldman and Laufman were very near an agreement between the Justice Department and Assange for "risk mitigation approaches relating to CIA documents in WikiLeaks' possession or control, such as the redaction of Agency personnel in hostile jurisdictions," in return for "an acceptable immunity and safe passage agreement" but a formal agreement was never reached and the very damaging disclosure about "Marble Framework" was released by WikiLeaks on 31 March 2017.
In February 2017, WikiLeaks began teasing the release of "Vault 7" with a series of cryptic messages on Twitter, according to media reports. Later on in February, WikiLeaks released classified documents describing how the CIA monitored the 2012 French presidential election. The press release for the leak stated that it was published "as context for its forthcoming CIA Vault 7 series."
In March 2017, US intelligence and law enforcement officials said to the international wire agency Reuters that they had been aware of the CIA security breach which led to Vault 7 since late 2016. Two officials said they were focusing on "contractors" as the possible source of the leaks.
In 2017, federal law enforcement identified CIA software engineer Joshua Adam Schulte as a suspected source of Vault 7. Schulte plead not guilty and was convicted in July 2022 of leaking the documents to WikiLeaks.
On 13 April 2017, CIA director Mike Pompeo declared WikiLeaks to be a "hostile intelligence service." In September 2021, Yahoo! News reported that in 2017 in the wake of the Vault 7 leaks, the CIA considered kidnapping or assassinating Assange, spying on associates of WikiLeaks, sowing discord among its members, and stealing their electronic devices. After many months of deliberation, all proposed plans had been scrapped due to a combination of legal and moral objections. Per the 2021 Yahoo News article, a former Trump national security official stated, "We should never act out of a desire for revenge".
Publications
According to a government witness during Joshua Schulte's retrial, some pages and information in Vault 7 were created by WikiLeaks to replace missing information.
Part 1 – "Year Zero" The first batch of documents named "Year Zero" was published by WikiLeaks on 7 March 2017, consisting of 7,818 web pages with 943 attachments, purportedly from the Center for Cyber Intelligence, which contained more pages than former NSA contractor and leaker, Edward Snowden's NSA release at the time. WikiLeaks had released Year Zero online in a locked archive earlier that week, and revealing the passphrase on the 7th. The passphrase referred to a President Kennedy quote that he wanted “to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds”.