WikiLeaks says CIA\u2019s tools break into phones<\/p>\n
LONDON: The US intelligence agencies are facing fresh embarrassment after WikiLeaks published what it described as the biggest ever leak of confidential documents from the CIA detailing the tools it uses to break into phones, communication apps and other electronic devices.
\nThe thousands of leaked documents focus mainly on techniques for hacking and reveal how the CIA cooperated with British intelligence to engineer a way to compromise smart televisions and turn them into improvised surveillance devices.
\nThe leak, named \u201cVault 7\u201d by WikiLeaks, will once again raise questions about the inability of US spy agencies to protect secret documents in the digital age. It follows disclosures about Afghanistan and Iraq by army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2010 and about the National Security Agency and Britain\u2019s GCHQ by Edward Snowden in 2013.
\nThe new documents appear to be from the CIA\u2019s 200-strong Center for Cyber Intelligence and show in detail how the agency\u2019s digital specialists engage in hacking. Monday\u2019s leak of about 9,000 secret files, which WikiLeaks said was only the first tranche of documents it had obtained, were all relatively recent, running from 2013 to 2016.
\nThe Center for Cyber Intelligence, based at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, has a second covert base in the US consulate in Frankfurt which covers Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
\nA 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.
\nThe CIA declined to comment on the leak beyond the agency\u2019s now-stock refusal to verify the content. \u201cWe do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents,\u201d wrote CIA spokesperson Heather Fritz Horniak. But it is understood the documents are genuine and a hunt is under way for the leakers or hackers responsible for the leak.
\nWikiLeaks, in a statement, was vague about its source. \u201cThe archive appears 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,\u201d the organisation said.
\nThe leak feeds into the present feverish controversy in Washington over alleged links between Donald Trump\u2019s team and Russia. US officials have claimed WikiLeaks acts as a conduit for Russian intelligence and Trump sided with the website during the White House election campaign, praising the organisation for publishing leaked Hillary Clinton emails.
\nJulian Assange, the WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, said the disclosures were \u201cexceptional from a political, legal and forensic perspective\u201d. WikiLeaks has been criticised in the past for dumping documents on the internet unredacted and this time the names of officials and other information have been blacked out.
\nWikiLeaks shared the information in advance with Der Spiegel in Germany and La Repubblica in Italy.<\/p>\n
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WikiLeaks says CIA\u2019s tools break into phones LONDON: The US intelligence agencies are facing fresh embarrassment after WikiLeaks published what it described as the biggest ever leak of confidential documents from the CIA detailing the tools it uses to break into phones, communication apps and other electronic devices. The thousands of leaked documents focus mainly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14266,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n