Most
of us carry smartphones and watch web-enabled TVs without much
thought. But the revelations found in Wikileaks’ “Vault 7”
release warn that we should consider the sinister capabilities that
such devices could lend to those who might abuse them.
Since
launching in 2006, Wikileaks has reportedly released over 10 million
documents, including controversial disclosures that have helped
unravel war crimes, uncover corporate secrets and even brought to
light explosive revelations stemming from Hillary Clinton’s most
recent presidential run.
Despite
facing widespread international denunciation, Wikileaks has remained
faithful in blowing the whistle on information that would have
remained hidden from the public. These secrets have helped to expose
many layers of the global state security apparatus and aided in
shaping the discourse surrounding government and corporate
transparency.
On April 7,
Wikileaks released 27 documents from the CIA’s Grasshopper
framework, a platform used by the agency to infect electronic devices
such as phones, computers, and televisions for surveillance purposes.
This information dump was part of a series known as “Vault 7,”
which targets the agency’s covert hacking program. “This
extraordinary collection,” Wikileaks writes, “which
amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its
possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA.”
According to
the documents provided by Wikileaks, knowledge of the CIA’s
invasive surveillance tools wasn’t confined to the agency, or even
the National Security Agency. In fact, the details of these exploits
were bought and shared by Britain’s Government Communications
Headquarters, as well as other intelligence agencies.
So what
tools does the CIA have in its surveillance arsenal? Over 8,000
documents found in the “Vault 7” series reveal weaponized
malware, trojans and viruses that could be used to spy on both
domestic and foreign entities, impacting a variety of seemingly
harmless household devices. Apple iPhones, Windows PCs and even
Samsung TV sets can be used to conduct surveillance on anyone the CIA
chooses to spy on. For example, one program named “Weeping Angel”
details methods that can be used to hijack a Samsung F8000 TV in
order to make it appear to be off when it is actually powered on.
The claim
that your TV could be used to spy on you is no longer one of
conspiracy. It is now our reality. “By hiding these security
flaws from manufacturers like Apple and Google, the CIA ensures that
it can hack everyone, at the expense of leaving everyone hackable,”
WikiLeaks says. And these, by all accounts, are just the tip of the
iceberg.
The “Vault
7” series, which has been described as being the largest leak of
its kind targeting the CIA, originated from an “isolated,
high-security network” within the CIA’s Center for Cyber
Intelligence. The documents it contains were revealed to Wikileaks by
way of an undisclosed source, though they’ve noted that their
source could be a former U.S. government hacker or CIA contractor.
After the
“Vault 7” series was first published, Trump administration
spokesman Sean Spicer revealed the White House was concerned, and
that “[a]nybody who leaks classified information will be held to
the highest degree of law.” Despite these threats, WikiLeaks
continues to release classified documents, showing us at least some
of the secrets behind the CIA’s curtain.
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