WikiLeaks has published what it claims is the
largest ever release of confidential documents on the CIA. It includes more
than 8,000 documents as part of ‘Vault 7’, a series of leaks on the agency,
which have allegedly emerged from the CIA's Center For Cyber Intelligence in Langley, and which can be
seen on the org chart below, which Wikileaks also released:
(See chart at website)
A total
of 8,761 documents have been published as
part of ‘Year Zero’, the first in a series of leaks the whistleblower
organization has dubbed ‘Vault 7.’ WikiLeaks said that ‘Year Zero’ revealed
details of the CIA’s “global covert hacking program,” including “weaponized
exploits” used against company products including “Apple's iPhone, Google's
Android and Microsoft's Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into
covert microphones.”
WikiLeaks tweeted the leak, which it claims came from a network
inside the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virginia.
Among
the more notable disclosures which, if confirmed, "would rock the technology world", the CIA had managed to
bypass encryption on popular phone and messaging services such as Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram. According to the statement from WikiLeaks,
government hackers can penetrate Android phones and collect “audio and message traffic
before encryption is applied.”
Another
profound revelation is that the CIA can engage in "false flag"
cyberattacks which portray Russia as the assailant. Discussing the CIA's Remote
Devices Branch's UMBRAGE group, Wikileaks' source notes that it "collects and maintains a
substantial library of attack techniques 'stolen' from malware produced in
other states including the Russian Federation.
"With UMBRAGE and related
projects the CIA cannot only increase its total number of attack types but also misdirect attribution by
leaving behind the "fingerprints" of the groups that the attack
techniques were stolen from. UMBRAGE components cover
keyloggers, password collection, webcam capture, data destruction, persistence,
privilege escalation, stealth, anti-virus (PSP) avoidance and survey
techniques."
As Kim
Dotcom summarizes this finding, "CIA uses techniques to make
cyber attacks look like they originated from enemy state. It turns DNC/Russia
hack allegation by CIA into a JOKE"
