WikiLeaks: The CIA is using smartphones and TVs to spy on their owners

Huge news have leaked these days on the Internet. WikiLeaks claims that the CIA is using TVs, smartphones and other smart devices to spy on their owners.

The US government’s powerful hacking tools grant the possibility to take surveillance right into the home and listen to billions of users worldwide.

Well, it seems that the worst nightmare is becoming reality. As many people have suspected for several years, it seems that our everyday devices can be turned to spy on their owners.

Here, we are talking about smartphones, TVs and even anti-virus software that are vulnerable to CIA hacking. At least this is what WikiLeaks claims.

[WikiLeaks says it has obtained trove of CIA hacking tools]WikiLeaks has declared that these devices can be turned to record the sounds, images and the private text messages of users.

After the Snowden disclosures, the Obama administration worked hard to re-establish relationships and government-industry partnerships,” declared David Gutelius, chief executive of the marketing technology company Motiva, for The New York Times. 

This leak will challenge those ties to some extent. But I don’t see companies simply walking away from the table as a result of this. Government and industry still need one another.

WikiLeaks Documents indicate that Samsung Smart TVs can be used by the CIA

Another huge bomb was the fact that WikiLeaks also declared that the CIA had acquired an array of cyberweapons that could be used to break into Apple and Android devices.

This is huge, because as we know so far, iPhones were considered to be a more secure choice than Android. These days, Apple declared into a statement that it had managed to create a patch to stop these vulnerabilities mentioned in the WikiLeaks documents.

Here is the statement:

Apple is deeply committed to safeguarding our customers’ privacy and security. The technology built into today’s iPhone represents the best data security available to consumers, and we’re constantly working to keep it that way. 

Our products and software are designed to quickly get security updates into the hands of our customers, with nearly 80 percent of users running the latest version of our operating system.

While our initial analysis indicates that many of the issues leaked today were already patched in the latest iOS, we will continue work to rapidly address any identified vulnerabilities. We always urge customers to download the latest iOS to make sure they have the most recent security updates.

WikiLeaks also declared that the CIA has a tool called “Weeping Angel,” which is used for attacking SamsungSmartTVs.

WikiLeaks declared that: 

After infestation, Weeping Angel places the target TV in a ‘Fake-Off’ mode, so that the owner falsely believes the TV is off when it is on, In ‘Fake-Off’ mode the TV operates as a bug, recording conversations in the room and sending them over the Internet to a covert CIA server.”

Security experts have declared that it is not a surprise that the government had stockpiled flaws in major technology products to use for spying.

There are several holes into these products and companies like Microsoft, Google, Samsung or Apple will have to cover them with new patches. However, it starts to be more and more obvious the conflict between the government and Silicon Valley.

Share this post