Apple has already fixed most of the iOS exploits the Central Intelligence Agency used

The documents, released in a file named Vault 7, contains 8,761 documents and according to WikiLeaks accounts for “the entire hacking capacity of the Central Intelligence Agency”.

The Frankfurt hackers, part of the Center for Cyber Intelligence Europe, were said to be given diplomatic passports and a State Department identity. “But the significance of ‘Year Zero” goes well beyond the choice between cyberwar and cyberpeace. Here is our rundown of some of the main revelations. The code represents potential attacks aimed at compromising iPhone and Android devices, turning Samsung smart TVs into surveillance devices and infecting the three major computer operating systems-Windows, macOS and Linux.

“Insufficient security protections in the growing amount of devices connected to the internet or so-called “smart” devices, such as Samsung Smart TVs, only compound the problem, giving governments easier access to our private lives”. The TV is then recording conversations in the room. There are also details on how the agency sought to subvert U.S. software products and smartphones, which included the Apple iPhone, Googl’es Android and Microsoft Windows. The files also allegedly contain details about the agency’s ability to collect data from machines running Apple’s iOS. Once a phone is hacked, the agency can allegedly intercept and the audio and messages “before the encryption is applied”.

“If today’s leaks are authenticated, they demonstrate what we’ve always been warning about government hacking powers – that they can be extremely intrusive, have enormous security implications, and are not sufficiently regulated”, a spokesperson told the INQUIRER.

One possibility is that the leaks may force the government to disclose the vulnerabilities to tech companies through the Vulnerability Equities Process, but even if this happens, it is likely to take considerable time. One of the more high-profile examples came when the Federal Bureau of Investigation reportedly purchased a software vulnerability in order to access the iPhone of a dead terrorist involved in last year’s massacre at San Bernardino. This leak of CIA documents appears to disclose for America’s enemies a key advantage against the asymmetric threats of this new century: better technology that provides better intelligence. WikiLeaks notes that the number of pages in “Year Zero” already surpasses the pages published “over the first three years of the Edward Snowden NSA leaks”.

The officials who spoke to CNN emphasized that any intelligence collection using the types of operations described in the documents is legal intelligence collection against overseas targets.

Wikileaks says it has elected not to release the actual code for the CIA’s malware and cyberweapons “until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA’s program and how such “weapons” should analyzed, disarmed and published”.