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U.S. NEWSWednesday 8 March 2017
WikiLeaks reveals CIA files describing hacking tools
Associated Press New CIA Director Michael Pompeo testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. WikiLeaks has published ments, but that if they were
WASHINGTON (AP) — thousands of documents that it says come from the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence, a dra- what they were purported
WikiLeaks published thou- matic release that appears to give an eye-opening look at the intimate details of the agency’s to be, it would amount to
sands of documents Tues- cyber-espionage effort. a “very extensive file of the
day described as secret tactics, techniques, proce-
files about CIA hacking (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) dures, targets and other
tools the government em- political rules” under which
ploys to break into users’ ternet services purportedly the CIA hacks targets. “If
computers, mobile phones compromised by the tools. it is that, it would be very,
and even smart TVs from The documents describe very damaging,” he said.
companies like Apple, CIA efforts — cooperat- Jonathan Liu, a spokes-
Google, Microsoft and ing with friendly foreign man for the CIA, said: “We
Samsung. governments and the U.S. do not comment on the
The documents describe National Security Agency authenticity or content
clandestine methods for — to subvert the world’s of purported intelligence
bypassing or defeating en- most popular technology documents.” White House
cryption, antivirus tools and platforms, including Ap- spokesman Sean Spicer
other protective security ple’s iPhones and iPads, also declined comment.
features intended to keep Google’s Android phones Missing from WikiLeaks’
the private information of and the Microsoft Windows trove are the actual hack-
citizens and corporations operating system for desk- ing tools themselves, some
safe from prying eyes. U.S. top computers and lap- of which were developed
government employees, tops. by government hackers
including President Don- The documents also in- while others were pur-
ald Trump, use many of clude discussions about chased from outsiders.
the same products and in- compromising some inter- WikiLeaks said it planned
net-connected televisions to avoid distributing tools
to turn them into listening “until a consensus emerg-
posts. One document dis- es” on the political nature
cusses hacking vehicle sys- of the CIA’s program and
tems, indicating the CIA’s how such software could
interest in hacking modern be analyzed, disarmed
cars with sophisticated on- and published.
board computers. Tuesday’s disclosure left
WikiLeaks has a long track anxious consumers who
record of releasing top use the products with little
secret government docu- recourse, since repairing
ments, and experts who the software vulnerabilities
sifted through the mate- in ways that might block
rial said it appeared legiti- the tools’ effectiveness is
mate. The chairman of the the responsibility of leading
House intelligence com- technology companies.
mittee, Rep. Devin Nunes, The revelations threatened
R-Calif., said he was very to upend confidence in an
concerned about the re- Obama-era government
lease and had asked the program, the Vulnerabil-
intelligence community for ity Equities Process, under
more information about it. which federal agencies
Former CIA Director Mike warn technology compa-
Hayden told MSNBC he nies about weaknesses in
had undertaken only a their software so they can
cursory review of the docu- be quickly fixed.
It was not immediately
clear how WikiLeaks ob-
tained the information, and
details in the documents
could not immediately be
verified. WikiLeaks said the
material came from “an
isolated, high-security net-
work” inside the CIA’s Cen-
ter for Cyber Intelligence
but didn’t say whether the
files were removed by a
rogue employee or wheth-
er the theft involved hack-
ing a federal contractor
working for the CIA or per-
haps breaking into a stag-
ing server where such infor-
mation might have been
temporarily stored.q
