The congressional research office confirmed a breach, but did not comment on the cause. A security researcher suggested the hack may have originated because CBO failed to patch a firewall for more than a year.

Peter Williams sold eight exploits to a Russian zero-day broker by smuggling them from his employer’s highly secured air-gapped network. A court document, plus exclusive reporting by TechCrunch and interviews with former Trenchant staff, explains how Williams pulled off the heist of hacking tools.