Contractors seen as likely breach source

WASHINGTON: Contractors probably breached security and handed over documents describing the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of hacking tools to antisecrecy group WikiLeaks, US intelligence and law enforcement officials said yesterday.

Two officials speaking on condition of anonymity said intelligence agencies had been aware since the end of last year of the breach, which led to WikiLeaks releasing thousands of pages of information on its website this week.

According to the documents, CIA hackers could get into Apple iPhones, devices running Google’s Android software and other gadgets in order to capture text and voice messages before they were encrypted with sophisticated software.

The White House said yesterday President Donald Trump was ‘‘extremely concerned’’ about the CIA security breach that led to the WikiLeaks release.

The two officials said they believed the published documents about CIA hacking techniques used between 2013 and 2016 were authentic.

One of the officials with knowledge of the investigation said companies that were contractors for the CIA had been checking to see which of their employees had access to the material WikiLeaks published, and then going over their computer logs, emails and other communications for any evidence of who might be responsible.

WikiLeaks said in a press release this week the CIA had ‘‘lost control’’ of an archive of hacking methods and it appeared to have been circulated ‘‘among former US government hackers and contractors in an unauthorised manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive’’.

The CIA, which is the US’ civilian foreign intelligence service, declined to comment on the authenticity of purported intelligence documents. The agency said in a statement its mission was to collect foreign intelligence abroad ‘‘to protect America from terrorists, hostile nation states and other adversaries’’ and to be ‘‘innovative, cuttingedge and the first line of defence in protecting this country from enemies abroad’’.

The CIA is legally prohibited from surveillance inside the US and ‘‘does not do so’’, the statement added.

A spokesman for the prosecutors declined to comment on the possibility of that probe being expanded. It is not clear if the investigation of the latest CIA leaks is part of the probe.