Kaspersky, the FBI and the leak of 50 terabytes of classified files

[Brother]

The Politico edition found out that Kaspersky Lab contributed to the arrest of 51-year-old hacker Harold Thomas Martin, who for 20 years had stolen documents from American intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency (NSA). In total, Martin's computers contained more than 500 million documents marked "secret" and "top secret", including the source code of hacking tools. The NSA's own security systems, for some reason, have leaked the biggest security leak in US history.

Martin was arrested by the FBI two and a half years ago, but only now it became known about the participation of Kaspersky Lab in his capture. He attracted the attention of a Russian company after, under an assumed name, through one of the IT specialists, he asked to arrange a conversation for him with Evgeny Kaspersky. After the end of the correspondence with Kaspersky, an advertisement appeared on the darknet about the sale of NSA hacking tools, which prompted the "Laboratory" to contact the American special services and start a joint investigation.

Kaspersky Lab passed on to the NSA all the reports of the alleged perpetrator, as well as data that pointed to his real identity. The documents of the criminal case, in which Martin is now being tried, do not indicate how the FBI found out his identity and residential address. At the same time, the NSA did not have an understanding of who is the source of the leaks of classified data and how they appear in the shadow market.

Martin partially repeated the "exploits" of Edward Snowden, who is currently hiding from American justice in Russia. Like Snowden, he had NSA clearance and worked with data from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the US Department of Defense, however, unlike his colleague, he did not release the copied documents.

Martin's lawyers argue that the prosecution has no evidence that he sold and sent classified documents to anyone. The fact that he kept them on his computers, defenders explain compulsive disorder - allegedly Martin is in constant fear of losing things that may be needed in the future.