CIA hacked phones, TVs, leaks reveal
If true, new dispute might be sparked between govt and technology giants
WASHINGTON — WikiLeaks on Tuesday released thousands of documents that it said revealed the secret tools the CIA has used to hack people’s smartphones, computer operating systems and even smart TVs.
A statement from the anti-se- crecy organization said that the 8,761 documents were obtained from “an isolated, high-security network” situated inside the CIA’s hacking division, the Center for Cyber Intelligence, in Langley, Virginia.
“Code-named ‘Vault 7’ by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency,” the statement said, noting the leaks detailed “the scope and direction of the CIA’s global covert hacking program”.
If true, the disclosure could spark new privacy tensions between the government and the technology industry. Relations have been fraught since 2013, when former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden disclosed secret surveillance of phone and digital communications.
Just last year, the two sides feuded over the FBI’s calls for Apple to rewrite its operating system so that agents could break into the locked iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers. The FBI ultimately broke into the phone with the help of an outside party.
WikiLeaks said the leaked documents “have been circulated among former US government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner”, one of whom provided them to WikiLeaks.
By the end of last year, it said, the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence had more than 5,000 people and had produced more than hacking systems, Trojans, viruses, and other “weaponized” malware.
These hacking programs can target “a wide range of US and European company products, include Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows (operating system) and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones”.
“Such is the scale of the CIA’s undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilized more code than that used to run Facebook,” the WikiLeaks statement said.
“The CIA had created, in effect, its ‘own NSA’ (National Security Agency) with even less accountability and without publicly answering the question as to whether such a massive budgetary spend on duplicating the capacities of a rival agency could be justified.”
US media quoted current and former US officials as saying that details contained in the documents suggest that they are legitimate.
Commenting on the documents, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said that “there is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber ‘weapons’ ”.