WikiLeaks, however, claims that there are more data dumps coming to Vault 7, which should provide a better idea on the reality of the CIA’s hacking capabilities.
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We and our colleagues at Consumer Reports are just now beginning to actually review the leaked documents, so there may be more to come out of this data dump. Here is our rundown of some of the main revelations.
WikiLeaks, in a statement, said: “The attack against Samsung smart TVs was developed in cooperation with the United Kingdom’s MI5/BTSS”.
It said that similar unit targets Google’s Android mobile operating system, used by smartphone manufacturers including Samsung, Sony and HTC. That software could then send information including geolocation, text and phone call information, and even activate the microphone or camera.
In the meantime, anyone saying the Central Intelligence Agency has “cracked Signal”, or other encrypted chat apps, is either betraying a lack of understanding about what WikiLeaks claims the Central Intelligence Agency is capable of doing, or engaging in base fearmongering. Once a phone is hacked, the agency can allegedly intercept and the audio and messages “before the encryption is applied”.
The group boasted that its latest collection of classified information is bigger in size and significance than the collection of National Security Agency documents revealed by former USA intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
But in the hours since the documents were made available, a common misconception of the leak is that the security of encrypted messaging apps, many of which have grown in popularity during the past six months, has been compromised.
“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”. The NSA is the U.S. government’s main electronic spy organisation.
This first slew of documents covers 2016 but Wikileaks says Vault 7’s breadth extends as far back as 2013 and that it will release more documents obtained from its anonymous source at a later stage. Williams, who has had experience dealing with government hackers said that the extensive reference to operation security meant that they involved the government, Williams said: “I can’t fathom anyone fabricated that amount of operational security concern”.
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WikiLeaks did not release the computer code for useable cyberweapons “until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA’s program and how such “weapons” should be analyzed, disarmed and published”.
