Thanks to WikiLeaks, antivirus vendors will soon be able to figure out if you have been hacked by the CIA.<\/p>\n
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Credit to Author: Michael Kan| Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2017 04:29:00 -0800<\/strong><\/p>\n Thanks to WikiLeaks, antivirus vendors will soon be able to figure out if you have been hacked by the CIA.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, WikiLeaks dumped<\/a> a trove of 8,700 documents that allegedly detail the CIA\u2019s secret hacking operations, including spying tools designed for mobile phones, PCs and smart TVs.<\/p>\n WikiLeaks has redacted the source code from the files to prevent the distribution of cyber weapons, it said. Nevertheless, the document dump — if real — still exposes some of the techniques that the CIA has allegedly been using.<\/p>\n Among those techniques are ways to bypass<\/a> antivirus software from vendors including Avira, Bitdefender and Comodo, according to some of the leaked documents.<\/p>\n The documents even include some snippets of code that antivirus vendors can use to detect whether a hacking attempt may have come from the CIA, said Jake Williams, founder of security company Rendition InfoSec.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the documents, they (the CIA) mention specific code snippets used in operational tools,\u201d Williams said. Antivirus vendors can use this to look at their customers\u2019 networks for any traces of past intrusions.<\/p>\n That might be a big blow to the CIA\u2019s surveillance operations. Now anyone, including foreign governments, can use the WikiLeaks dump to figure out if the CIA ever targeted them, according to Williams.<\/p>\n \u201cI would bet my bank account that the hackers of the CIA have spent all day trying to remove their tools from high value networks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n WikiLeaks hasn\u2019t said who supplied the secret documents. But the anonymous source is hoping to spark debate over whether the CIA abused its authority by developing so many hacking tools without public oversight, WikiLeaks said<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n “There is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber ‘weapons’,\u201d WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange added in a statement.<\/p>\n But some security researchers believe WikiLeaks is trying to mislead the public by exaggerating the CIA’s hacking capabilities. \u201cThe press is getting taken for a ride today,\u201d said Will Strafach, CEO of Sudo Security Group, who studies vulnerabilities in Apple\u2019s iOS.<\/p>\n Although WikiLeaks has said the CIA documents show the agency can hack iPhones and Android smartphones for spying purposes, consumers shouldn\u2019t necessarily be concerned, he said.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because the dumped documents mostly mention exploits for iOS that appear to already be publicly known and have been patched.<\/p>\n \u201cI have not found anything here that could be a danger to anyone running iOS 10 or above,\u201d Strafach said.<\/p>\n Earlier news headlines and a tweet<\/a> from WikiLeaks on Tuesday also suggested that the CIA hacking tools can bypass the encryption on messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Signal. But there\u2019s no evidence that the CIA ever cracked the encryption, only that the agency developed exploits and malware to take over devices.<\/p>\n \u201cThe CIA\/Wikileaks story today is about getting malware onto phones, none of the exploits are in Signal or break Signal Protocol encryption,\u201d tweeted Open Whisper Systems, which developed the encryption used in the apps.<\/p>\n Journalists and security researchers are still looking over the dumped documents. But it doesn\u2019t appear the hacking tools equate to mass surveillance, said Robert Graham, CEO of security firm Errata Security. \u00a0<\/p>\n One hacking tool, code-named Weeping Angel<\/a>, allegedly involves turning a Samsung smart TV into a monitoring device. But the tool seems to only work if a CIA agent can physically install it on the TV. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we look at the tools, they really give off the impression that they are used locally,\u201d Graham said. \u201cThat some CIA agent has to walk in. It\u2019s not remote hacking.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, some privacy advocates are worried by the WikiLeaks document dump. They say it confirms that the U.S. government has known about key vulnerabilities in tech products, but decides to develop hacking tools around them, rather than help vendors patch them.<\/p>\n A document<\/a> in the dump shows that CIA exploits for Apple\u2019s iOS were allegedly purchased from the U.S. National Security Agency, British intelligence or bought from third-party providers.\u00a0<\/p>\n The key danger is that malicious groups, such as foreign government hackers, might discover the vulnerabilities too — putting everyday users in harm’s way.<\/p>\n \u201cAs these leaks show, we’re all made less safe by the CIA’s decision to keep — rather than ensure the patching of — vulnerabilities,\u201d wrote<\/a> Cindy Cohn, executive director of privacy advocate, the Electronic Frontier Foundation.<\/p>\n “Even spy agencies like the CIA have a responsibility to protect the security and privacy of Americans,” she said.<\/p>\n But others aren’t so sure the document dump really shows that the CIA has been stockpiling information about vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n “It is difficult to tell this from the info we have at this point,” Ari Schwartz, a former White House senior director for cybersecurity, said in an email. “Questions that I would have are:\u00a0 Are they really previously unknown?”<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/category\/security\/index.rss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Credit to Author: Michael Kan| Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2017 04:29:00 -0800<\/strong><\/p>\n Thanks to WikiLeaks, antivirus vendors will soon be able to figure out if you have been hacked by the CIA.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n