Privacy & New Media

WikiLeaks: CIA Has Targeted Everyday Gadgets for Snooping

3/8/2017

Anick Jesdanun

US News

    WikiLeaks has revealed yet another set of CIA-centered documents revealing that the agency uses technology like smart TVs to monitor Americans’ everyday goings-on, weeding through personal conversations held in citizens’ homes. The site has yet to release specifics of the “hacks,” citing a desire to wait “‘until a consensus emerges’ on the nature of the CIA’s program and now the methods should be ‘analyzed, disarmed and published.’” These documents, if released in full, could contain detailed information for anyone who reads them to have the same access the CIA has.

    WikiLeaks itself claims that the CIA’s access to the data available from phones and TVs relies heavily on security vulnerabilities within the software of these devices, which they have yet to disclose to the developers of said technology. These vulnerabilities, obviously, are accessible to anyone who finds them, potentially leaking this same information to malicious entities as well.

    Yet more worrying is that WikiLeaks claims that the CIA has found ways to abuse these vulnerabilities to intercept data before encryption or after decryption, leaving even supposedly protected information passed through apps like WhatsApp in fact vulnerable. Additionally, WikiLeaks claims that the CIA makes use of virus-like secretive applications that target Windows PCs.

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