NSA's elite hacking unit intercepted computers ordered online and installed Spyware to steal data from their toughest of targets The latest NSA revelations focus on the undercover work of an elite team of hackers known as Tailored Access Operations Citing internal documents, German magazine Der Spiegel said on Sunday that TAO's mission is 'Getting the ungettable' An unnamed intelligence official said TAO had gathered 'some of the most significant intelligence our country has ever seen' Their spies have intercepted computer deliveries, exploited hardware vulnerabilities, and even hijacked Microsoft's internal reporting system NSA spies have intercepted computer deliveries, exploited hardware vulnerabilities, and even hijacked Microsoft's internal reporting system all in the name of stealing data from some of their toughest targets. These latest revelations to emerge about the undercover work of the National Security Agency focus on the work carried out by an elite team of hackers known as Tailored Access Operations (TAO). Citing internal NSA documents, German magazine Der Spiegel said on Sunday that TAO's mission is â€˜Getting the ungettable,â€™ and quoted an unnamed intelligence official as saying that TAO had gathered â€˜some of the most significant intelligence our country has ever seen.â€™ NSA headquarters in Fort Meade: These latest revelations to emerge about the organization focus on the work carried out by an elite team of hackers known as Tailored Access Operations Der Spiegel said TAO has a catalog of high-tech gadgets for particularly hard-to-crack cases, including computer monitor cables specially modified to record what is being typed across the screen, USB sticks secretly fitted with radio transmitters to broadcast stolen data over the airwaves, and fake base stations intended to intercept mobile phone signals on the go. The NSA doesn't just rely on James Bond-style spy gear, the magazine said. Some of the attacks described by Der Spiegel exploit weaknesses in the architecture of the internet to deliver malicious software to specific computers. Others take advantage of weaknesses in hardware or software distributed by some of the world's leading information technology companies, including Cisco Systems and China's Huawei Technologies, the magazine reported. Der Spiegel cited a 2008 mail order catalog-style list of vulnerabilities that NSA spies could exploit from companies such as Western Digital or Dell. Protestors hold up placards featuring a picture of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and with the world Asylum on it during a march against the spying methods of the US in Hamburg, northern Germany on Sunday The magazine said that suggested the agency was â€˜compromising the technology and products of American companies.â€™ Old-fashioned methods get a mention too. Der Spiegel said that if the NSA tracked a target ordering a new computer or other electronic accessories, TAO could tap its allies in the FBI and the CIA, intercept the hardware in transit, and take it to a secret workshop where it could be discretely fitted with espionage software before being sent on its way. Intercepting computer equipment in such a way is among the NSA's â€˜most productive operations,â€™ and has helped harvest intelligence from around the world, one document cited by Der Spiegel stated. One of the most striking reported revelations concerned the NSA's alleged ability to spy on Microsoft's crash reports, familiar to many users of the Windows operating system as the dialogue box which pops up when a game freezes or a Word document dies. Protestors hold up placards featuring a picture of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden during a march against the spying methods of the US in Hamburg, northern Germany on Sunday The reporting system is intended to help Microsoft engineers improve their products and fix bugs, but Der Spiegel said the NSA was also sifting through the reports to help spies break into machines running Windows. One NSA document cited by the magazine appeared to poke fun at Microsoft's expense, replacing the software giant's standard error report message with the words: â€˜This information may be intercepted by a foreign sigint (signals intelligence) system to gather detailed information and better exploit your machine.â€™ Microsoft did not immediately return a call seeking comment, but the company is one of several U.S. firms that have demanded more transparency from the NSA - and worked to bolster their security - in the wake of the revelations of former intelligence worker Edward Snowden, whose disclosures have ignited an international debate over privacy and surveillance. Der Spiegel did not explicitly say where its cache NSA documents had come from, although the magazine has previously published a series of stories based on documents leaked by Snowden, and one of Snowden's key contacts - American documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras - was listed among the article's six authors. No one was immediately available at Der Spiegel to clarify whether Snowden was the source for the latest story.