WikiLeaks says CIA hacking unit cracked smartphones and TVs worldwide
“These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Weibo, Confide and Cloackman(sic) by hacking the smartphones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied,” McClatchy:
The CIA has built up a formidable hacking division that has amassed ways to control smartphones worldwide and turn on the microphones in Samsung smart televisions, WikiLeaks said Tuesday.
WikiLeaks released <https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/> what it said were 8,761 documents taken from the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, in what it described as “the largest intelligence publication in history.”
The documents indicate that the CIA has collected “more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses and other ‘weaponized’ malware” that allow the agency to overcome encryption and seize control of devices from the biggest tech firms worldwide, including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung. It said the CIA had purposefully withheld information from the manufacturers about the vulnerabilities in their systems, undermining a promise offered by former President Barack Obama to the high-tech industry.
A CIA spokesman declined to say whether the purported leak was real.
“We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents,” spokesman Jonathan Liu said.
The WikiLeaks documents, which it said span a period from 2013 to 2016, reveal an arsenal of malware and dozens of “zero day” exploits against a wide range of products, including Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android, Microsoft’s Windows and even Samsung smart televisions, which are turned into covert microphones.
Some of the tools would allow the CIA to hack and control popular smartphones, including the iPhone, giving remote operators access to the phone’s location and its audio and text communications, and permitting covert activation of the camera and microphone.
While iPhones compose only 14.5 percent of the global smartphone market, WikiLeaks said the focus on Apple’s iOS operating system “may be explained by the popularity of the iPhone among social, political, diplomatic and business elites.”
The documents indicate that the CIA controlled 24 different vulnerabilities for Google’s Android operating system, which is used in 5 out of 6 smartphones worldwide.
“These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Weibo, Confide and Cloackman by hacking the smartphones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied,” WikiLeaks said.
The anti-secrecy organization said it had obtained the documents from someone associated with the 5,000 hackers in the Center for Cyber Intelligence who objected to its lack of accountability and duplication of efforts with the National Security Agency, a rival intelligence arm.
“The source wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyber weapons,” WikiLeaks said.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article136906453.html
On Mar 7, 2017, at 1:12 PM, Razer <g2s@riseup.net> wrote:
“These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Weibo, Confide and Cloackman(sic) by hacking the smartphones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied,”
McClatchy:
The CIA has built up a formidable hacking division that has amassed ways to control smartphones worldwide and turn on the microphones in Samsung smart televisions, WikiLeaks said Tuesday.
WikiLeaks released <https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/> what it said were 8,761 documents taken from the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, in what it described as “the largest intelligence publication in history.”
The documents indicate that the CIA has collected “more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses and other ‘weaponized’ malware” that allow the agency to overcome encryption and seize control of devices from the biggest tech firms worldwide, including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung. It said the CIA had purposefully withheld information from the manufacturers about the vulnerabilities in their systems, undermining a promise offered by former President Barack Obama to the high-tech industry.
A CIA spokesman declined to say whether the purported leak was real.
“We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents,” spokesman Jonathan Liu said.
The WikiLeaks documents, which it said span a period from 2013 to 2016, reveal an arsenal of malware and dozens of “zero day” exploits against a wide range of products, including Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android, Microsoft’s Windows and even Samsung smart televisions, which are turned into covert microphones.
Some of the tools would allow the CIA to hack and control popular smartphones, including the iPhone, giving remote operators access to the phone’s location and its audio and text communications, and permitting covert activation of the camera and microphone.
While iPhones compose only 14.5 percent of the global smartphone market, WikiLeaks said the focus on Apple’s iOS operating system “may be explained by the popularity of the iPhone among social, political, diplomatic and business elites.”
The documents indicate that the CIA controlled 24 different vulnerabilities for Google’s Android operating system, which is used in 5 out of 6 smartphones worldwide.
“These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Weibo, Confide and Cloackman by hacking the smartphones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied,” WikiLeaks said.
The anti-secrecy organization said it had obtained the documents from someone associated with the 5,000 hackers in the Center for Cyber Intelligence who objected to its lack of accountability and duplication of efforts with the National Security Agency, a rival intelligence arm.
“The source wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyber weapons,” WikiLeaks said.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article136906453.html
Just started browsing through the wikileaks files - some interesting stuff, guides on EFI hacking, microtik routers, all sorts of shit under the EDB section... I wonder if there is some source code coming, that would be nice for a lot of these nefarious sounding projects with howto guides that include links to internal 10.x git repos.. Dirty fucking CIA :P. I wonder how much crossover there was/is in tools dev between them and the NSA?
participants (2)
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John Newman -
Razer