Replying to self because I just got around to watching the movie. In his final days before the leak Snowden was part of the counter espionage cyber division as

Replying to self because I just got around to watching the movie. In his final days before the leak Snowden was part of the counter espionage cyber division as an NSA contractor. He was actively hacking and preventing hacks from China. These might not be part of the toolset he used, but its reasonable to believe he would have been aware of them and had access to them.