Covert CIA Cyberattacks Against Venezuela’s Military Payroll System and Intelligence Service Network (2019)
Journalistic investigations published in 2025, cited by CNN, Wired, and subsequent analyses, reported that during Donald Trump’s first term, the CIA carried out covert cyber operations against Venezuela, including actions targeting the military payroll system and the computer network used by Nicolás Maduro’s intelligence service. The public existence of the report is documented, but the technical details and attribution lack independent public forensic evidence.
Impact details
Media and security policy sources report that CIA cyber operations in 2019 temporarily disrupted payroll payments for the Venezuelan military and disabled an intelligence services computer network. No public source provides technical indicators, evidence of data exfiltration, or the exact number of records affected.
Classification & severity
- Category
- Availability
- Subtype
- covert cyber operation service disruption
- Confidence
- Medium
Reports by Wired and CNN describe the suspension of payroll payments for the Venezuelan military and an intelligence network. The public evidence consists of journalistic reports and sources, not technical evidence.
Severity assessment
High- Functional impact
- Degraded (critical)
- Information impact
- None
- Affected scope
- Multiple systems
- Critical service
- Degraded
- Public confidence
- Limited
- Recoverability
- Supplemented
Reported disruption of military payroll and intelligence network services, with credible media sources but few publicly available technical details.
Timeline
The CIA hacked into the state-run payroll system used to pay Venezuelan military personnel (according to Wired), disrupting payments to sow discontent within the armed forces. During the same period (the final year of Trump’s first term), the CIA disabled the computer network of Maduro’s intelligence service (according to CNN).
CNN reported on the cyberattack that disabled the Venezuelan intelligence service's network, citing four sources familiar with the operation.
Wired published an investigation into the Trump administration’s (2018–2020) covert efforts to overthrow Maduro, including the 2019 cyberattack on the military payroll system.
An analysis on Lawfare cited both reports and noted that the disruption of military payroll was the most effective operation.