The NSA hacker who "lost" important tools of his service, from his personal computer, admitted his guilt.
The service partner confirmed in Baltimore County District Court that he made copies of the classified software at his home, on a Windows computer running the antivirus by Kaspersky Labs.
Nghia Hoang Pho, 67, is a Vietnam-born American citizen living in Ellicott, Maryland. Pho is very likely to "receive" six to eight years in prison when the trial, scheduled for April 2018, takes place.
Pho is a TAO (Tailored Operations Access) developer whose home computer ran one software security of Kaspersky Lab allegedly used in one way or another by the Russian authorities to intercept NSN's highly confidential documents and tools of 2015.
According to Kaspersky, the security software on the Pho's computer detected the copies of NSA tools as a new malware and clustered it to the cloud for further analysis by the company's researchers.
According to the company, the specific files uploaded for analysis were deleted as soon as researchers realized what they were. But US government sources say the Russians were able to get their hands on Secret Service tools through the package protectionof Kaspersky although the company continues to deny any direct involvement.
The indictment of Pho he says:
"Beginning in 2010 and continuing through March 2015, Pho removed and retained U.S. government documents. containing national defense information, including information classified as top secret. "
"This material was in both print and digital form and was kept at Pho's home in Maryland."
The indictment does not mention Pho's attempt to sell the data.
Kaspersky Lab of course, as we said above, has denied any violation or illegal links with the Russian intelligence services. The security company also noted that Pho's computer had been infected by malicious software, meaning anyone could have intercepted the data.
