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Operations Support Branch

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Operations Support Branch
Agency overview
TypeDepartment of the Central Intelligence Agency
StatusActive (As of 2020)
HeadquartersVirginia
Parent agencyCentral Intelligence Agency

The Operations Support Branch (OSB) is a unit of the cyber-intelligence division of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[1] It is located on the ninth floor of a secret facility in the suburbs of northern Virginia, west of Washington, D.C.[1] Patrick Radden Keefe described the OSB as the CIA's "secret hacker unit, in which a cadre of élite engineers create cyberweapons" in a June 2022 article for The New Yorker.[1]

The OSB specialises in physical access operations in which 'physical access' is gained to electronic devices owned by high value individual targets such as foreign government officials and terrorists.[1] The OSB is able to quickly develop tools that can be utilised in cyberintelligence missions at short notice.[1]

According to anonymous witnesses who testified at Joshua Schulte's trial, the OSB was filled with workspace pranks, like stealing coworkers' things, name calling, shoving matches, rubber band and Nerf gun wars. Asked if she was aware of this, the former head of CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence Bonnie Stith said she was not.[2]

The employees of the OSB numbered about a dozen in the 2010s.[1] Radden Keefe described the extreme secrecy of the OSB at this period as resulting in staff unable to " ... take work home, or talk with anyone on the outside about what they did all day. Their office was a classified sanctum, a locked vault. Like the crew of a submarine, they forged strong bonds—and strong antagonisms".[1] The software engineer Joshua Schulte was employed by the OSB from 2010 to 2016. He was convicted of being the leaker of the Vault 7 documents which detail electronic surveillance and cyber warfare tools developed by the CIA.[1][3][4][5] Schulte was nicknamed 'Voldemort' during his time at the OSB.[1] The leak and publication of the Vault 7 documents was a significant blow to the CIA, a senior official likened it to the 'digital' equivalent of the attack on Pearl Harbor in its scope and fallout.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Keefe, Patrick Radden (June 6, 2022). "The Surreal Case of a C.I.A. Hacker's Revenge". The New Yorker. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
  2. ^ Hong, Nicole (February 17, 2020). "Life of a C.I.A. Coder: Nerf Guns, Pranks and Fat Jokes". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 30, 2022.
  3. ^ Williams, Damian (July 13, 2022). "Statement Of U.S. Attorney Damian Williams On The Espionage Conviction Of Ex-CIA Programmer Joshua Adam Schulte" (Press release). United States Department of Justice. Retrieved July 29, 2022.
  4. ^ Shanahan, Ed (July 13, 2022). "Ex-C.I.A. Engineer Convicted in Biggest Theft Ever of Agency Secrets". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 29, 2022.
  5. ^ "Ex-CIA engineer convicted over massive data leak". Al Jazeera English. July 14, 2022. Retrieved July 29, 2022.
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