According an internal investigation Snowden has leaked the secret NSAdocuments using a web crawler software designed to search, index and backup a website. The New York Times reports Snowden has used an inexpensive and widely available software to scrape the NSA’s networks. The process was quite automated according to intelligence officials involved in the investigation. The super agency has capitulated under the threat of an individual who has cheated them in the context in which they had just become stronger, the confidentiality of information was compromised.”]
Source: https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/22095/intelligence/snowden-used-web-crawler.html