American spying that baffled the world!

The latest revelations in relativity towards the US governments powerful hacking tools potentially takes surveillance right into the homes and hip pockets of billions of users worldwide, showing how a remarkable variety of everyday devices can be transformed into CIA spying tools.

According to the Wikileaks documents released recently, Televisions, smart phones and even antivirus software are all vulnerable to CIA hacking and the capabilities described include recording sounds, images as well as private text messages even when users resort to encrypt apps to communicate.

Similarly CIA has been developing a number of malware programs which can be used in terms of entering into smart phones thereby in persuasion of the information existing in phones thus sending to servers of CIA. These programs are being activated in the smart phones without the knowledge of the user and once the phone is being used, the geo location and text communication is acquired by the CIA. Moreover the camera and microphone of the phone can be remotely activated in videoing the surroundings as well as recording the conversations of the user thereby sending it across to the CIA servers.

All of these CIA Malware and hacking tools which are being used for spying have been developed by the institutions directly working under CIA – Centre for Cyber Intelligence. And although CIA expresses its disappointment and necessity of conducting an investigation pertaining to the disclosure of Wikileaks, yet there has been no repudiation pertaining to the matter. Yet nevertheless all most all of the institutions that dealt in developing the Cyber Intelligence tools have spoken in relativity towards the security standards of their products.

While many of the attack technologies of relativity had been previously discussed at cyber security conferences, experts were startled in seeing evidence of the CIA transforming massive amount of theoretical vulnerabilities into functioning attack tools against staples of modern life including widely used internet routers, smart phones and Mac and Windows computers.

Furthermore according to Wikileaks that in the case of a tool called ‘Weeping Angel’ for attacking Samsung Smart TV’s; after infestation Weeping Angel places the target TV in a fake off mode leaving the owner to falsely believe that the TV is off when it is on thereby the TV being operated in a fake off mode recording conversations within the extent thus sending the gathered info via internet to a covert CID sever.

The documents pertaining to the Wikileaks revelation exist during the period of 2013 – 2016 during which time the Apple Company emphasizes their products to have consisted with most advanced security features even during the specified period as well as of equal standards even up to date. And according to Apple, current features to be more improvised since the security components used during the period have being replaced by modern equipment, and that no Apple device can be hacked by any cyber hacking tool and that there will be no risk whatsoever after latest updates are being installed.

Although all of the said smart TVs are from Samsung, the operating system remains to be of windows 10, thus in relativity towards the said fourth, Microsoft Company has also replied by emphasizing that it is impossible to infiltrate to these devices due to the modern security features that exists of a windows 10. Google Company relates to nothing out of the extraordinary yet confirms their Android operating system to be within the safety zone.

Also according to Wikileaks , a specialized CIA unit called the Mobile Devices Branch had produced malware in terms of controlling and stealing information from I phones which according to Wikileaks were a particular focus due to the popularity of the smartphone among social, political diplomatic as well as among the business elites. The agency also targeted popular phones running Google’s Android, the world’s leading mobile operating system it was further revealed. The anti-secrecy group also stated that by developing such intrusive technology, rather than helping tech companies in terms of patching flaws in their products the CIA was undermining efforts towards protection of cyber security of the Americans. By targeting devices, the CIA reportedly gains access to even well encrypt communications, on such popular apps as Signal and WhatsApp without having to crack the encryption itself. The Wikileaks reports acknowledged that difference by saying the CIA had found ways to ‘by pass’ as opposed to defeat, encryption technologies.

Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo and many other companies announced major new initiatives, in part to protect their brands against accusations by some users that they had made it too easy for the NSA to collect information from their systems. Many web sites meanwhile began encrypting their data flows to users to prevent snooping. Encryption tools such as Tor were strengthened and customers were urged to download latest ios to make sure they have the most recent security updates.

The Wikileaks release revealed that the CIA has sophisticated ‘stealth’ capabilities thereby enabling hackers to not only infiltrate systems but also to evade detection as well as abilities to move inside a system freely as if they owned it. And last but not least Wikileaks revelations will also serve as a reminder that for whatever the political backlash to revelations on digital spying it will not go away but probably will continue to grow. - Nilanthi Wickramasinghe