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TECHNOLOGY A23
Wednesday 8 March 2017
WikiLeaks: CIA has targeted everyday gadgets for snooping
ANICK JESDANUN broke into the phone with This Feb. 19, 2014, file photo, shows WhatsApp and Facebook to make voice commands,
AP Technology Writer the help of an outside par- such as requests for movie
NEW YORK (AP) — Maybe ty; the agency has neither app icons on a smartphone in New York. recommendations. If the
the CIA is spying on you disclosed the party nor the TV is off, there’s no listening
through your television set nature of the vulnerability, Associated Press being done.
after all. preventing Apple from fix- But WikiLeaks claims that a
Documents released by ing it. that aren’t public. vulnerabilities in iPhones CIA hack makes the target
WikiLeaks allege a CIA According to WikiLeaks, If they’re authentic, the and Android phones and TV appear to be off when
surveillance program that much of the CIA program leaked CIA documents also targeted tablets such it’s actually on — and lis-
targets everyday gadgets centered on dozens of vul- frame a stark reality: It may as iPads. According to tening. WikiLeaks says the
ranging from smart TVs to nerabilities it discovered be that no digital conver- WikiLeaks, the vulnerabili- audio goes to a covert CIA
smartphones to cars. Such but didn’t disclose to the sation, photo or other slice ties were discovered by server rather than a party
snooping, WikiLeaks said, gadget makers. Common of life can be shielded from the CIA itself or obtained authorized by Samsung. In
could turn some of these practice calls for govern- spies and other intruders from other government such cases, audio isn’t lim-
devices into recorders of ment agencies to disclose prying into smartphones, agencies and cyberweap- ited to TV commands but
everyday conversations — such flaws to companies personal computers, tab- on contractors. could include everyday
and could also circumvent privately, so that they lets or just about device CARS, TRUCKS AND TVS conversations.
data-scrambling encryp- could fix them. connected to the internet. WikiLeaks also claims that Other tools in the CIA’s ar-
tion on communications Instead, WikiLeaks claims, “It’s getting to the point the CIA worked with U.K. senal target PCs running
apps such as Facebook’s the CIA held on to the where anything you say, intelligence officials to turn Microsoft’s Windows sys-
WhatsApp. knowledge in order to con- write or electronically trans- microphones in Samsung tem, according to WikiLe-
WikiLeaks is, for now, with- duct a variety of attacks. mit on a phone, you have smart TVs into listening de- aks, which says many of
holding details on the spe- As a result, tech companies to assume that it is going to vices. The microphones are the attacks are in the form
cific hacks used “until a such as Apple, Google and be compromised in some normally there for viewers of viruses designed to
consensus emerges” on Microsoft haven’t been way,” said Robert Cattan- spread through CDs and
the nature of the CIA’s pro- able to make the neces- USB drives.
gram and how the meth- sary fixes. WikiLeaks also says the CIA
ods should be “analyzed, “Serious vulnerabilities not was also targeting control
disarmed and published.” disclosed to the manufac- systems used by cars and
But WikiLeaks — a nonprofit turers places huge swathes trucks. Although WikiLe-
that routinely publishes of the population and criti- aks didn’t have details on
confidential documents, cal infrastructure at risk to how that might be used, it
frequently from govern- foreign intelligence or cy- said the capability might
ment sources — claims that ber criminals who indepen- allow the CIA to “engage
the data and documents dently discover or hear ru- in nearly undetectable
it obtained reveal a broad mors of the vulnerability,” assassinations.”q
program to bypass secu- WikiLeaks wrote in a press
rity measures on everyday release. “If the CIA can dis- ach, a former U.S. Depart-
products. cover such vulnerabilities
MORE PRIVACY CLASHES so can others.” ment of Justice attorney
If true, the disclosure could A BIG YAWN TO SOME
spark new privacy tensions Not everyone is worried, who now specializes in cy-
between the government though.
and the technology indus- Alan Paller, director of re- bersecurity and privacy for
try. Relations have been search for the cybersecu-
fraught since 2013, when rity training outfit SANS In- the law firm Dorsey & Whit-
former National Security stitute, said the case boils
Agency contractor Ed- down to “spies who use ney.
ward Snowden disclosed their tools to do what they
secret NSA surveillance of are paid to do.” He said SIDESTEPPING ENCRYPTION
phone and digital commu- criminals already have simi-
nications. lar tools — and he’s more WikiLeaks claims the hacks
Just last year, the two sides worried about that.
feuded over the FBI’s calls Rich Mogull, CEO of the allowed the CIA to collect
for Apple to rewrite its op- security research firm Se-
erating system so that curosis, said that agencies audio and other messag-
agents could break into gathering intelligence on
the locked iPhone used by other organizations and es from data-scrambling
one of the San Bernardino governments need, by def-
attackers. The FBI ultimately inition, technical exploits communication apps such
as WhatsApp, Signal, Tele-
gram and Confide by in-
tercepting data before it
is encrypted or after it’s
decoded. The CIA didn’t
appear to compromise the
apps themselves, but rath-
er the phone’s underlying
operating system.
WikiLeaks says the CIA had
separate teams looking for
