FBI investigating source of WikiLeaks’ purported CIA document dump

The site has been behind the Iraq and Afghan War documents leak that provided details on USA military attacks with high civilian casualties; details of the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program, “Cablegate;” and, most recently, hacked e-mails from members of the Democratic Party prior to the 2016 presidential election.

According to the documents, the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence has amassed a staff of some 5,000 who have developed or acquired numerous malware tools including “zero-day” exploits – previously unknown hacking tools, Wikileaks said in a statement.

The more than 8,700 documents and files published Tuesday are being called “Year Zero”. In a move unusual for Wikileaks, individuals’ names have been redacted and replaced with unique identifiers. Bob Ayers, retired US Intelligence official noted that Wikileaks has promised that it would release more CIA documents.

According to the WikiLeaks files, the CIA collaborated with British intelligence agency GCHQ to find ways to hack iPhones, iPads and Google Android mobiles. That would put it on scale of Edward Snowden’s leak of documents stolen from National Security Agency in 2013.

By infecting and effectively taking over the software of smartphones, WikiLeaks said, the Central Intelligence Agency can get around the encryption technologies of popular apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Weibo and Confide by collecting communications before they are encrypted.

Regardless of their origin, the documents appear to describe some incredibly scary-sounding hacking tools.

An attack against Samsung TV’s used “Weeping Angel” in cooperation with MI5, placing them into a “Fake-Off” mode, recording conversations even when the device appears to be off.

The CIA, which is the United States’ civilian foreign intelligence service, declined to comment on the authenticity of purported intelligence documents.

Ars will update this story with further analysis and details when they are available.

If the release does prove to be authentic, it would be another major breach for the US intelligence community at the hands of WikiLeaks, an antisecrecy group led by Julian Assange, and its collaborators. “The archive appears to have been circulated among former USA government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner”.

WikiLeaks said the documents show the CIA’s hackers have developed malware to be able to hack into nearly any device people use and can remotely control iPhones, iPads, Android devices, taking video from their cameras and listening with their microphones.

If the leaked documents are verified, it could have major security implications for Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, and all other tech companies.

Samsung has responded and, like Microsoft, said it’s urgently looking into it. Not much. The best things to do: Keep your phone up to date and follow basic information security best practices such as using two-factor authentication and unique passwords. USA intelligence agencies have accused Russian Federation of being behind the attack.