Hacking fears haunt Lavrov

Moscow, March 9 : Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that he did not bring his smartphone to talks on “sensitive issues” to avoid being hacked, days after WikiLeaks exposed a CIA hacking programme.

“I myself try not to bring any phones to talks regarding sensitive issues,” Lavrov said at a press conference with his German counterpart Sigmar Gabriel in Moscow.

“At least, I seem to have managed not to get into any unpleasant situations for now.” Lavrov added jokingly that in addition to smartphones, he had heard that the CIA was capable of penetrating “refrigerators too”. On Tuesday, WikiLeaks published nearly 9,000 documents it said were part of a huge trove leaked from the CIA, describing it as the largestever publication of secret intelligence materials.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday accused the CIA of “devastating incompetence” for failing to protect its hacking secrets and said that he would work with tech companies

to develop fixes for them.

“This is a historic act of devastating incompetence, to have created such an arsenal and then stored it all in one place,” Assange said. “It is impossible to keep effective control of cyber weapons... If you build them, eventually you will lose them,” Assange said.

Assange was speaking in a press conference streamed live from Ecuador’s embassy in London. He said his website had “a lot more information” about the CIA’s hacking operation but would hold off on publishing until WikiLeaks had spoken to tech manufacturers.

I myself try not to bring any phones to talks regarding sensitive issues — Sergei Lavrov Russian foreign minister