[Update] – Apple stated that a large number of the iOS exploits in the Wikileaks stash have already been patched and it is working to address any new vulnerabilities.
WikiLeaks has obtained what it says is a top-secret documents from the CIA detailing the tools it uses to break into phones, communication apps and other electronic devices. Julian Assange’s anti-secrecy group has published thousands of of CIA documents, codenamed Vault 7, that purports to reveal the agency’s “entire hacking capacity”.
CIA malware and hacking tools are built by EDG (Engineering Development Group), a software development group within CCI (Center for Cyber Intelligence), a department belonging to the CIA’s DDI (Directorate for Digital Innovation). The leak claims that CIA hackers in partnership with other U.S. and foreign agencies, could get into Apple iPhones, Google Android devices and other gadgets in order to capture text and voice messages before they were encrypted with sophisticated software. They have been able to bypass the encryption on popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, by hacking phones that use Google Inc’s Android platform to collect audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.
In addition, a programme called Weeping Angel describes how to attack a Samsung F8000 TV set so that it appears to be off but can still be used for monitoring. In ‘Fake-Off’ mode the TV operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them over the Internet to a covert CIA server.
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The first full part of the series, “Year Zero”, comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Virgina.
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor said,
There is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber ‘weapons’. Comparisons can be drawn between the uncontrolled proliferation of such ‘weapons’, which results from the inability to contain them combined with their high market value, and the global arms trade. But the significance of “Year Zero” goes well beyond the choice between cyberwar and cyberpeace. The disclosure is also exceptional from a political, legal and forensic perspective.
The CIA and White House declined comment. “We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents,” CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu said in a statement.