WikiLeaks has targeted CIA yet again in a new data dump about its technical capabilities when it started its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday (March 07). The code was named as "Vault 7" by the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.
Wikileaks is out with its first full series, “Year Zero” comprising of 8,761 documents which it has obtained from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virgina. The series of documents claims to show that CIA has developed and obtained zero-day exploits from GCHQ, NSA, FBI or purchased from cyber arms contractors such as Baitshop for iOS devices. What is more worrying is that the agency has “lost control” of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, Trojans, weaponized ‘zero day’ exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. The series follows an introductory disclosure last month of CIA targeting French political parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election.
Wikileaks says that these zero-day exploits are unknown to Apple or security researchers. As such, there’s no way to currently protect an end-user from them.
The disproportionate focus on iOS may be explained by the popularity of the iPhone among social, political, diplomatic and business elites.
This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.
The National Security Agency faced its problems when Edward Snowden passed on documents to journalists - but this time it's the NSA's sister agency.
CIA was already earlier embroiled in a row with President Donald Trump amid his claims that spies are leaking secrets against him.
While the NSA is the agency charged with collecting what is called signals intelligence and the CIA's job is to recruit human spies, the reality is that the technical and the human side of espionage have been drawing closer for years.
"Year Zero" introduces the scope and direction of the CIA's global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of "zero day" weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.
The CIA created a Directorate of Digital Innovation whose director said that the priority was making sure the agency stayed on top of technology.
While the NSA may sift global internet traffic looking for intelligence, the CIA prioritises close access against specific targets who it is interested in.
Since 2001 the CIA has gained political and budgetary preeminence over NSA. The CIA found itself building not just its now infamous drone fleet, but a very different type of covert, globe-spanning force — its own substantial fleet of hackers. The agency's hacking division freed it from having to disclose its often controversial operations to the NSA (its primary bureaucratic rival) in order to draw on the NSA's hacking capacities.
Wikileaks is out with its first full series, “Year Zero” comprising of 8,761 documents which it has obtained from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virgina. The series of documents claims to show that CIA has developed and obtained zero-day exploits from GCHQ, NSA, FBI or purchased from cyber arms contractors such as Baitshop for iOS devices. What is more worrying is that the agency has “lost control” of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, Trojans, weaponized ‘zero day’ exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. The series follows an introductory disclosure last month of CIA targeting French political parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election.
Wikileaks says that these zero-day exploits are unknown to Apple or security researchers. As such, there’s no way to currently protect an end-user from them.
The disproportionate focus on iOS may be explained by the popularity of the iPhone among social, political, diplomatic and business elites.
This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.
The National Security Agency faced its problems when Edward Snowden passed on documents to journalists - but this time it's the NSA's sister agency.
CIA was already earlier embroiled in a row with President Donald Trump amid his claims that spies are leaking secrets against him.
While the NSA is the agency charged with collecting what is called signals intelligence and the CIA's job is to recruit human spies, the reality is that the technical and the human side of espionage have been drawing closer for years.
"Year Zero" introduces the scope and direction of the CIA's global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of "zero day" weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.
The CIA created a Directorate of Digital Innovation whose director said that the priority was making sure the agency stayed on top of technology.
While the NSA may sift global internet traffic looking for intelligence, the CIA prioritises close access against specific targets who it is interested in.
Since 2001 the CIA has gained political and budgetary preeminence over NSA. The CIA found itself building not just its now infamous drone fleet, but a very different type of covert, globe-spanning force — its own substantial fleet of hackers. The agency's hacking division freed it from having to disclose its often controversial operations to the NSA (its primary bureaucratic rival) in order to draw on the NSA's hacking capacities.