NSA employee pleads guilty to stealing classified documents later stolen by Russia-linked hackers

Former National Security Agency employee Nghia H. Pho has pleaded guilty to taking classified documents while working for the organization, The New York Times reports. The documents were later believed to have been stolen from Pho's home computer by hackers working for Russia.

Pho was charged in secret, with his identity and plea being made public for the first time Friday. A former software developer for the NSA, Pho is "one of three NSA workers to be charged in the past two years with mishandling classified information, a dismal record for an agency that handles some of the government's most carefully guarded secrets," the Times writes.

The documents allegedly stolen from Pho's computer included information "on penetrating foreign computer networks and protecting against cyber attacks and is likely to be viewed as one of the most significant security breaches to date," Reuters wrote in October.

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