WikiLeaks says it has a trove on the CIA's hacking secrets. Washington Post national security reporter Greg Miller explains what these documents reveal. (Dalton Bennett,Greg Miller/The Washington Post) 
 
 The latest revelations about the U.S. government’s powerful hacking tools potentially takes surveillance right into the homes and hip pockets of billions of users worldwide, showing how a remarkable variety of everyday devices can be turned to spy on their owners. 
 
 Televisions, smartphones and even anti-virus software are all vulnerable to CIA hacking, according to the WikiLeaks documents released Tuesday. The capabilities described include recording the sounds, images and the private text messages of users, even when they resort to encrypted apps to communicate. 
 
 [WikiLeaks says it has obtained trove of CIA hacking tools] 
 
 While many of the attack technologies had been previously discussed at cybersecurity conferences, experts were startled to see evidence that the CIA had turned so many theoretical vulnerabilities into functioning attack tools against staples of modern life. These include widely used Internet routers, smartphones, and Mac and Windows computers. 
 
 In the case of a tool called “Weeping Angel” for attacking Samsung SmartTVs, WikiLeaks wrote, “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.” 
 
 The CIA reportedly also has studied whether it could infect vehicle control systems for cars and trucks, which WikiLeaks alleged could be used to conduct “nearly undetectable assassinations.” 
 
 And a specialized CIA unit called the Mobile Devices Branch produced malware to control and steal information from iPhones, which according to WikiLeaks were a particular focus because of the smartphone’s popularity “among social, political diplomatic and business elites.” The agency also targeted popular phones running Google’s Android, the world’s leading mobile operating system. 
 
 Wikileaks said it redacted lists of CIA surveillance targets, though it said they included targets and machines in Latin America, Europe and the United States. The anti-secrecy group also said that by developing such intrusive technology — rather than helping tech companies patch flaws in their products — the CIA was undermining efforts to protect the cybersecurity of Americans. 
 
 “The argument that there is some terrorist using a Samsung TV somewhere — as a reason to not disclose that vulnerability to the company, when it puts thousands of Americans at risk — I fundamentally disagree with it, “ said Alex Rice, chief technology officer for Hacker One, a start-up that enlists hackers to report security gaps to companies and organizations in exchange for cash. 
 
 [The Trump White House is totally changing its tune on wiretapping and hoping you don’t notice] 
 
 The trove released Tuesday , which The Washington Post could not independently verify and the CIA has declined to confirm, included 8,761 documents that were the first batch of a series of releases that WikiLeaks plans, it said. 
 
 This first group, at least, shows important differences from the 2013 revelations by the National Security Agency’s former contractor Edward Snowden. His trove of documents largely described mass surveillance of Internet-based communications systems, while the WikiLeaks release more often describes attacks on individual devices. 
 
 By targeting devices, the CIA reportedly gains access to even well-encrypted communications, on such popular apps as Signal and WhatsApp, without having to crack the encryption itself. The WikiLeaks reports acknowledged that difference by saying the CIA had found ways to “bypass,” as opposed to defeat, encryption technologies. 
 
 “The idea that the CIA and NSA can hack into devices is kind of old news,” said Johns Hopkins cryptography expert Matthew D. Green. “Anyone who thought they couldn’t was living in a fantasy world.” 
 
 Snowden’s revelations and the backlash made strong encryption a major, well-funded cause for both privacy advocates and, perhaps more importantly, technology companies that had the engineering expertise and budgets to protect data as it flowed across the world. 
 
 Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo and many other companies announced major new initiatives, in part to protect their brands against accusations by some users that they had made it too easy for the NSA to collect information from their systems. Many websites, meanwhile, began encrypting their data flows to users to prevent snooping. Encryption tools such as Tor were strengthened. 
 
 Encrypting apps for private messaging, such as Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp exploded in popularity, especially among users around the world who were fearful of government intrusion. In the days following the U.S. presidential election, Signal was among the most downloaded in Apple’s app store, and downloads grew by more than 300 percent. 
 
 Open Whispers Systems, which developed Signal, released a statement Tuesday, saying, “The CIA/WikiLeaks story today is about getting malware onto phones, none of the exploits are in Signal or break Signal Protocol encryption.” 
 
 WhatsApp declined to comment, and Telegram did not respond to requests for comment. Google declined to comment, while Samsung did not respond to requests for comment. 
 
 “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,” Apple spokesman Fred Sainz said in a statement Tuesday. 
 
 [Understanding cyberspace is key to defending against digital attacks] 
 
 U.S. government authorities complained loudly that the post-Snowden wave of encryption was undermining their ability to investigate serious crimes, such as terrorism and child pornography. The FBI in 2016 sued Apple in hopes of forcing it to unlock an iPhone used by the San Bernadino killers before announcing it had other ways to crack the device amid heavy public criticism. 
 
 Against that backdrop, many privacy advocates argued that devices — often called “endpoints” for their place on chains of communications that can crisscross continents — were the best available targets left in a world with widespread online encryption. The WikiLeaks documents suggests that the CIA may have reached the same conclusion. 
 
 “It would certainly be consistent with the hypothesis that we’ve made real progress in the encryption we’ve been introducing,” said Peter Eckersley, technology projects director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group. “It’s impossible to be 100 percent certain, but reading the tea leaves, it’s plausible.” 
 
 The WikiLeaks revelations also will serve as a reminder that, for whatever the political backlash to revelations about digital spying, it is not going away and probably will continue to grow. 
 
 Aside from the United States, many other advanced nations such as China, Russia, Britain and Israel have extremely sophisticated tools for digital spying. Less advanced nations have gained access to powerful online spying technology through a robust and lightly regulated industry of surveillance contractors based throughout the world. 
 
 On Tuesday, resignation and frustration rippled through Silicon Valley as technologists grappled with revelations of yet another U.S. government attempt to exploit their systems. And cybersecurity experts reacted with alarm. 
 
 “This is explosive,” said Jake Williams, founder of Rendition Infosec, a cybersecurity firm. The material highlights specific anti-virus products that can be defeated, going further than a release of NSA hacking tools last year, he said. 
 
 The WikiLeaks release revealed that the CIA has sophisticated “stealth” capabilities that enable hackers not only to infiltrate systems, but evade detection, as well as abilities to move inside a system freely as if they owned it. 
 
 Nicholas Weaver, a computer security researcher at the University of California at Berkeley said the dates in the WikiLeaks files suggest the documents were taken in February or March 2016. At least two of them are marked Top Secret, “which suggests that somebody in early 2016 managed to compromise a Top Secret CIA development system and is willing to say that they did.” 
 
 One internal CIA document listed a set of Apple iPhone “exploits” — or tools that can be used to compromise the device by taking advantage of software flaws. Some of the tools are based on “zero-days,” which are software vulnerabilities that have not been shared with the manufacturer. So “some of these descriptions will allow Apple to fix the vulnerabilities,” Weaver said. “But at the same time, they’re out in the public and whoever stole this data could use them against U.S. interests.” 
 
 Read more: 
 
 How the CIA deceives its own workforce about operations 
 
 NSA contractor charged with stealing top secret data 
 
 How hard is it to get an intelligence wiretap? Pretty hard. 
 
 This pretty blond doll could be spying on your family ||||| Thanks to WikiLeaks, antivirus vendors will soon be able to figure out if you have been hacked by the CIA. 
 
 On Tuesday, WikiLeaks dumped a trove of 8,700 documents that allegedly detail the CIA’s secret hacking operations, including spying tools designed for mobile phones, PCs and smart TVs. 
 
 WikiLeaks has redacted the actual 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. 
 
 Among those techniques are ways to bypass antivirus software from vendors including Avira, Bitdefender and Comodo, according to some of the leaked documents. 
 
 The CIA’s playbook out in the open 
 
 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. 
 
 “In the documents, they (the CIA) mention specific code snippets used in operational tools,” Williams said. Antivirus vendors can use this to look at their customers’ networks for any traces of past intrusions. 
 
 That might be a big blow to the CIA’s surveillance operations. Now anyone, including foreign governments, can use the WikiLeaks dump to figure out if the CIA ever targeted them, according to Williams. 
 
 “I would bet my bank account that the hackers of the CIA have spent all day trying to remove their tools from high value networks,” he said. 
 
 WikiLeaks hasn’t 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. 
 
 “There is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber ‘weapons’,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange added in a statement. 
 
 But some security researchers believe WikiLeaks is trying to mislead the public by exaggerating the CIA’s hacking capabilities. “The press is getting taken for a ride today,” said Will Strafach, CEO of Sudo Security Group who studies vulnerabilities in Apple’s iOS. 
 
 How real are the risks? 
 
 Although WikiLeaks has said the CIA documents show the agency can hack iPhones and Android smartphones for spying purposes, consumers shouldn’t necessarily be concerned, he said. 
 
 That’s because the dumped documents mostly mention exploits for iOS that appear to already be publicly known and have been patched. 
 
 “I have not found anything here that could be a danger to anyone running iOS 10 or above,” Strafach said. 
 
 Earlier news headlines and a tweet 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’s no evidence that the CIA ever cracked the encryption, only that the agency developed exploits and malware to take over devices. 
 
 “The CIA/Wikileaks story today is about getting malware onto phones, none of the exploits are in Signal or break Signal Protocol encryption,” tweeted Open Whisper Systems, which developed the encryption used in the apps. 
 
 Journalists and security researchers are still looking over the dumped documents. But it doesn’t appear the hacking tools equate to mass surveillance, said Robert Graham, CEO of security firm Errata Security. 
 
 One hacking tool, code-named Weeping Angel, 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. 
 
 “When we look at the tools, they really give off the impression that they are used locally,” Graham said. “That some CIA agent has to walk in. It’s not remote hacking.” 
 
 Questions over vulnerabilities 
 
 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. 
 
 A document in the dump shows that CIA exploits for Apple’s iOS were allegedly purchased from the U.S. National Security Agency, British intelligence or bought from third-party providers. 
 
 The key danger is that malicious groups, such as foreign government hackers, might discover the vulnerabilities too—putting everyday users in harm’s way. 
 
 “As these leaks show, we’re all made less safe by the CIA’s decision to keep—rather than ensure the patching of—vulnerabilities,” wrote Cindy Cohn, executive director of privacy advocate, the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 
 
 “Even spy agencies like the CIA have a responsibility to protect the security and privacy of Americans,” she said. 
 
 But others aren’t so sure the document dump really shows that the CIA has been stockpiling information about vulnerabilities. 
 
 “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: Are they really previously unknown?” ||||| A vast portion of the CIA’s computer hacking arsenal appeared to have been exposed Tuesday by the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, which posted thousands of files revealing secret cyber-tools used by the agency to convert cellphones, televisions and other ordinary devices into implements of espionage. 
 
 The trove appeared to lay bare the design and capabilities of some of the U.S. intelligence community’s most closely guarded cyberweapons, a breach that is likely to cause immediate damage to the CIA’s efforts to gather intelligence overseas and place new strain on the U.S. government’s relationship with Silicon Valley giants including Apple and Google. 
 
 WikiLeaks, which claimed to have gotten the files from a current or former CIA contractor, touted the trove as comparable in scale and significance to the collection of National Security Agency documents exposed by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. 
 
 But while the Snowden files revealed massive surveillance programs that gathered data on millions of Americans, the CIA documents posted so far by WikiLeaks appear mainly to unmask hacking methods that many experts already assumed the agency had developed. 
 
 U.S. intelligence officials and experts said details contained in the newly released documents suggest that they are legitimate, although that could not be independently verified, raising new worries about the U.S. government’s ability to safeguard its secrets in an era of cascading leaks of classified data. 
 
 (Reuters) 
 
 The files mention pieces of malware with names like “Assassin” and “Medusa” that seem drawn from a spy film, describing tools that the CIA uses to steal data from iPhones, seize control of Microsoft-powered computers or even make Internet-connected Samsung television sets secretly function as microphones. 
 
 The release of so many sensitive files appeared to catch the CIA, the White House and other government entities off-guard. A CIA spokesman would say only that “we do not comment on the authenticity of purported intelligence documents.” 
 
 In a statement, WikiLeaks indicated that the initial stockpile it put online was part of a broader collection of nearly 9,000 files that would be posted over time describing code developed in secret by the CIA to steal data from a range of targets. WikiLeaks said it redacted lists of CIA surveillance targets, though it said they included targets and machines in Latin America, Europe and the United States. 
 
 The release was described as a huge loss to the CIA by security experts and former U.S. intelligence officials. “It looks like really the backbone of their network exploitation kit,” said a former hacker who worked for the National Security Agency and, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject. 
 
 The breach could undermine the CIA’s ability to carry out key parts of its mission, from targeting the Islamic State and other terrorist networks to penetrating the computer defenses of sophisticated cyber-adversaries including Russia, China and Iran, former officials and tech specialists said. 
 
 “Any exposure of these tools is going to cause grave if not irreparable damage to the ability of our intelligence agencies to conduct our mission,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official said. 
 
 If legitimate, the release represents the latest major breach of sensitive U.S. government data to be put on global display in humiliating fashion by WikiLeaks, which came to prominence in 2010 with the exposure of thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables and military files. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has engaged in an escalating feud with the United States while taking refuge at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London from Swedish sexual assault allegations. 
 
 WikiLeaks’ latest assault on U.S. secrets may pose an early, potentially awkward security issue for President Trump, who has repeatedly praised WikiLeaks and disparaged the CIA. 
 
 Trump declared “I love WikiLeaks” last October during a campaign rally when he read from a trove of stolen emails about his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, that had been posted to the organization's website. 
 
 White House press secretary Sean Spicer declined to comment when asked about the CIA breach during a news briefing Tuesday. 
 
 [Why the CIA is using your TVs, smartphones and cars for spying] 
 
 WikiLeaks indicated that it obtained the files from a current or former CIA contractor, saying that “the archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.” 
 
 But the counterintelligence investigation underway at the CIA is also likely to search for clues to whether Russia had any role in the theft of the agency’s digital arsenal. U.S. intelligence officials allege that WikiLeaks has ties to Russian intelligence services. The website posted thousands of emails stolen from Democratic Party computer networks during the 2016 presidential campaign, files that U.S. intelligence agencies concluded were obtained and turned over to WikiLeaks as part of a cyber-campaign orchestrated by the Kremlin. 
 
 Experts and former intelligence officials said the latest files appear to be authentic in part because they refer to code names and capabilities known to have been developed by the CIA’s cyber-branch. 
 
 “At first glance,” the data release “is probably legitimate or contains a lot of legitimate stuff, which means somebody managed to extract a lot of data from a classified CIA system and is willing to let the world know that,” said Nicholas Weaver, a computer security researcher at the University of California at Berkeley. 
 
 Faking a large quantity of data is difficult but not impossible, he noted. Weaver said he knows of one case of WikiLeaks deliberately neglecting to include a document in a data release and one case of WikiLeaks deliberately mislabeling stolen data, “but no cases yet of deliberately fraudulent information.” 
 
 [WikiLeaks releases thousands of documents about Clinton and internal deliberations] 
 
 WikiLeaks said the trove comprised tools — including malware, viruses, trojans and weaponized “zero day” exploits — developed by a CIA entity known as the Engineering Development Group, part of a sprawling cyber-directorate created in recent years as the agency shifted resources and attention to online espionage. 
 
 WikiLeaks labeled the trove “Vault 7” and said that it contains several hundred million lines of code, many of which are designed to exploit vulnerabilities in everyday consumer devices. 
 
 In a statement, WikiLeaks said the files enable the agency to bypass popular encryption-enabled applications — including WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram — used by millions of people to safeguard their communications. 
 
 But experts said that rather than defeating the encryption of those applications, the CIA’s methods rely on exploiting vulnerabilities in the devices on which they are installed, a method referred to as “hacking the endpoint.” 
 
 [Why understanding cyberspace is key to defending against digital attacks] 
 
 WikiLeaks said that the files were created between 2013 and 2016 and that it would publish only a portion of the archive — redacting some sensitive samples of code — “until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA’s program.” 
 
 The organization did not clarify what achieving such a consensus would entail, but for now it appeared to be withholding fully formed pieces of ready-made code that could be used by other intelligence services or even novice hackers. 
 
 Still, the data release alarmed cybersecurity experts, who said the files contain snippets of code that could enable adversaries to replicate CIA capabilities or identify and root out CIA “implants” currently in place. 
 
 “This is explosive,” said Jake Williams, founder of Rendition InfoSec, a cybersecurity firm. The material highlights specific anti-virus products that can be defeated, going further than a release of NSA hacking tools last year, he said. The CIA hackers, according to WikiLeaks, even “discussed what the NSA’s . . . hackers did wrong and how the CIA’s malware makers could avoid similar exposure.” 
 
 Hackers who worked at the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations unit said the CIA’s library of tools looked comparable. The implants — software that enables hackers to remotely control a compromised device — are “very, very complex” and “at least on par with the NSA,” said one former TAO hacker. 
 
 Beyond hacking weapons, the files also purportedly reveal information about the organization of the CIA’s cyber-directorate and indicate that the agency uses the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany, as a hacking hub for operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 
 
 Though primarily thought of as an agency that recruits spies, the CIA has taken on a larger role in electronic espionage over the past decade. In 2015 the agency created the Directorate of Digital Innovation, a division that puts cyber-work on equal footing with long-standing directorates devoted to conventional spying and analysis. 
 
 The CIA’s focus is more narrow and targeted than that of the NSA, which is responsible for sweeping up electronic communications on a large scale around the globe. By contrast, CIA efforts mainly focus on “close in” operations in which the agency at times relies on individuals carrying thumb drives or other devices to implant code on computer systems not connected to the Internet. 
 
 One of the most intriguing tools described in the files, called “Weeping Angel,” can apparently be used to put certain television sets into a fake “off” mode while activating a microphone that enables the CIA to capture any conversations in the surrounding space. 
 
 Ashkan Soltani and Julie Tate contributed to this report. 
 
 Read more: 
 
 How the CIA deceives its own workforce about operations 
 
 NSA contractor charged with stealing top secret data 
 
 How hard is it to get an intelligence wiretap? Pretty hard. 
 
 This pretty blond doll could be spying on your family ||||| Press Release 
 
 Today, Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks begins its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named "Vault 7" by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency. 
 
 The first full part of the series, "Year Zero", comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virgina. It follows an introductory disclosure last month of CIA targeting French political parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election. 
 
 Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive. 
 
 "Year Zero" introduces the scope and direction of the CIA's global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of "zero day" weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones. 
 
 Since 2001 the CIA has gained political and budgetary preeminence over the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The CIA found itself building not just its now infamous drone fleet, but a very different type of covert, globe-spanning force — its own substantial fleet of hackers. The agency's hacking division freed it from having to disclose its often controversial operations to the NSA (its primary bureaucratic rival) in order to draw on the NSA's hacking capacities. 
 
 By the end of 2016, the CIA's hacking division, which formally falls under the agency's Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), had over 5000 registered users and had produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other "weaponized" malware. Such is the scale of the CIA's undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilized more code than that used to run Facebook. The CIA had created, in effect, its "own NSA" with even less accountability and without publicly answering the question as to whether such a massive budgetary spend on duplicating the capacities of a rival agency could be justified. 
 
 In a statement to WikiLeaks the source details policy questions that they say urgently need to be debated in public, including whether the CIA's hacking capabilities exceed its mandated powers and the problem of public oversight of the agency. The source wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons. 
 
 Once a single cyber 'weapon' is 'loose' it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by rival states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike. 
 
 Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor stated that "There is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber 'weapons'. Comparisons can be drawn between the uncontrolled proliferation of such 'weapons', which results from the inability to contain them combined with their high market value, and the global arms trade. But the significance of "Year Zero" goes well beyond the choice between cyberwar and cyberpeace. The disclosure is also exceptional from a political, legal and forensic perspective." 
 
 Wikileaks has carefully reviewed the "Year Zero" disclosure and published substantive CIA documentation while avoiding the distribution of 'armed' 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. 
 
 Wikileaks has also decided to redact and anonymise some identifying information in "Year Zero" for in depth analysis. These redactions include ten of thousands of CIA targets and attack machines throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States. While we are aware of the imperfect results of any approach chosen, we remain committed to our publishing model and note that the quantity of published pages in "Vault 7" part one (“Year Zero”) already eclipses the total number of pages published over the first three years of the Edward Snowden NSA leaks. 
 
 Analysis 
 
 CIA malware targets iPhone, Android, smart TVs 
 
 CIA malware and hacking tools are built by EDG (Engineering Development Group), a software development group within CCI (Center for Cyber Intelligence), a department belonging to the CIA's DDI (Directorate for Digital Innovation). The DDI is one of the five major directorates of the CIA (see this organizational chart of the CIA for more details). 
 
 The EDG is responsible for the development, testing and operational support of all backdoors, exploits, malicious payloads, trojans, viruses and any other kind of malware used by the CIA in its covert operations world-wide. 
 
 The increasing sophistication of surveillance techniques has drawn comparisons with George Orwell's 1984, but "Weeping Angel", developed by the CIA's Embedded Devices Branch (EDB), which infests smart TVs, transforming them into covert microphones, is surely its most emblematic realization. 
 
 The attack against Samsung smart TVs was developed in cooperation with the United Kingdom's MI5/BTSS. 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. 
 
 As of October 2014 the CIA was also looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks. The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations. 
 
 The CIA's Mobile Devices Branch (MDB) developed numerous attacks to remotely hack and control popular smart phones. Infected phones can be instructed to send the CIA the user's geolocation, audio and text communications as well as covertly activate the phone's camera and microphone. 
 
 Despite iPhone's minority share (14.5%) of the global smart phone market in 2016, a specialized unit in the CIA's Mobile Development Branch produces malware to infest, control and exfiltrate data from iPhones and other Apple products running iOS, such as iPads. CIA's arsenal includes numerous local and remote "zero days" developed by CIA or obtained from GCHQ, NSA, FBI or purchased from cyber arms contractors such as Baitshop. The disproportionate focus on iOS may be explained by the popularity of the iPhone among social, political, diplomatic and business elites. 
 
 A similar unit targets Google's Android which is used to run the majority of the world's smart phones (~85%) including Samsung, HTC and Sony. 1.15 billion Android powered phones were sold last year. "Year Zero" shows that as of 2016 the CIA had 24 "weaponized" Android "zero days" which it has developed itself and obtained from GCHQ, NSA and cyber arms contractors. 
 
 These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Wiebo, Confide and Cloackman by hacking the "smart" phones that they run on and collecting audio and message traffic before encryption is applied. 
 
 CIA malware targets Windows, OSx, Linux, routers 
 
 The CIA also runs a very substantial effort to infect and control Microsoft Windows users with its malware. This includes multiple local and remote weaponized "zero days", air gap jumping viruses such as "Hammer Drill" which infects software distributed on CD/DVDs, infectors for removable media such as USBs, systems to hide data in images or in covert disk areas ( "Brutal Kangaroo") and to keep its malware infestations going. 
 
 Many of these infection efforts are pulled together by the CIA's Automated Implant Branch (AIB), which has developed several attack systems for automated infestation and control of CIA malware, such as "Assassin" and "Medusa". 
 
 Attacks against Internet infrastructure and webservers are developed by the CIA's Network Devices Branch (NDB). 
 
 The CIA has developed automated multi-platform malware attack and control systems covering Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, Linux and more, such as EDB's "HIVE" and the related "Cutthroat" and "Swindle" tools, which are described in the examples section below. 
 
 CIA 'hoarded' vulnerabilities ("zero days") 
 
 In the wake of Edward Snowden's leaks about the NSA, the U.S. technology industry secured a commitment from the Obama administration that the executive would disclose on an ongoing basis — rather than hoard — serious vulnerabilities, exploits, bugs or "zero days" to Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other US-based manufacturers. 
 
 Serious vulnerabilities not disclosed to the manufacturers places huge swathes of the population and critical infrastructure at risk to foreign intelligence or cyber criminals who independently discover or hear rumors of the vulnerability. If the CIA can discover such vulnerabilities so can others. 
 
 The U.S. government's commitment to the Vulnerabilities Equities Process came after significant lobbying by US technology companies, who risk losing their share of the global market over real and perceived hidden vulnerabilities. The government stated that it would disclose all pervasive vulnerabilities discovered after 2010 on an ongoing basis. 
 
 "Year Zero" documents show that the CIA breached the Obama administration's commitments. Many of the vulnerabilities used in the CIA's cyber arsenal are pervasive and some may already have been found by rival intelligence agencies or cyber criminals. 
 
 As an example, specific CIA malware revealed in "Year Zero" is able to penetrate, infest and control both the Android phone and iPhone software that runs or has run presidential Twitter accounts. The CIA attacks this software by using undisclosed security vulnerabilities ("zero days") possessed by the CIA but if the CIA can hack these phones then so can everyone else who has obtained or discovered the vulnerability. As long as the CIA keeps these vulnerabilities concealed from Apple and Google (who make the phones) they will not be fixed, and the phones will remain hackable. 
 
 The same vulnerabilities exist for the population at large, including the U.S. Cabinet, Congress, top CEOs, system administrators, security officers and engineers. By hiding these security flaws from manufacturers like Apple and Google the CIA ensures that it can hack everyone &mdsh; at the expense of leaving everyone hackable. 
 
 'Cyberwar' programs are a serious proliferation risk 
 
 Cyber 'weapons' are not possible to keep under effective control. 
 
 While nuclear proliferation has been restrained by the enormous costs and visible infrastructure involved in assembling enough fissile material to produce a critical nuclear mass, cyber 'weapons', once developed, are very hard to retain. 
 
 Cyber 'weapons' are in fact just computer programs which can be pirated like any other. Since they are entirely comprised of information they can be copied quickly with no marginal cost. 
 
 Securing such 'weapons' is particularly difficult since the same people who develop and use them have the skills to exfiltrate copies without leaving traces — sometimes by using the very same 'weapons' against the organizations that contain them. There are substantial price incentives for government hackers and consultants to obtain copies since there is a global "vulnerability market" that will pay hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for copies of such 'weapons'. Similarly, contractors and companies who obtain such 'weapons' sometimes use them for their own purposes, obtaining advantage over their competitors in selling 'hacking' services. 
 
 Over the last three years the United States intelligence sector, which consists of government agencies such as the CIA and NSA and their contractors, such as Booz Allan Hamilton, has been subject to unprecedented series of data exfiltrations by its own workers. 
 
 A number of intelligence community members not yet publicly named have been arrested or subject to federal criminal investigations in separate incidents. 
 
 Most visibly, on February 8, 2017 a U.S. federal grand jury indicted Harold T. Martin III with 20 counts of mishandling classified information. The Department of Justice alleged that it seized some 50,000 gigabytes of information from Harold T. Martin III that he had obtained from classified programs at NSA and CIA, including the source code for numerous hacking tools. 
 
 Once a single cyber 'weapon' is 'loose' it can spread around the world in seconds, to be used by peer states, cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike. 
 
 U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt is a covert CIA hacker base 
 
 In addition to its operations in Langley, Virginia the CIA also uses the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt as a covert base for its hackers covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 
 
 CIA hackers operating out of the Frankfurt consulate ( "Center for Cyber Intelligence Europe" or CCIE) are given diplomatic ("black") passports and State Department cover. The instructions for incoming CIA hackers make Germany's counter-intelligence efforts appear inconsequential: "Breeze through German Customs because you have your cover-for-action story down pat, and all they did was stamp your passport" 
 
 Your Cover Story (for this trip) 
 
 Q: Why are you here? 
 
 A: Supporting technical consultations at the Consulate. 
 
 Two earlier WikiLeaks publications give further detail on CIA approaches to customs and secondary screening procedures. 
 
 Once in Frankfurt CIA hackers can travel without further border checks to the 25 European countries that are part of the Shengen open border area — including France, Italy and Switzerland. 
 
 A number of the CIA's electronic attack methods are designed for physical proximity. These attack methods are able to penetrate high security networks that are disconnected from the internet, such as police record database. In these cases, a CIA officer, agent or allied intelligence officer acting under instructions, physically infiltrates the targeted workplace. The attacker is provided with a USB containing malware developed for the CIA for this purpose, which is inserted into the targeted computer. The attacker then infects and exfiltrates data to removable media. For example, the CIA attack system Fine Dining, provides 24 decoy applications for CIA spies to use. To witnesses, the spy appears to be running a program showing videos (e.g VLC), presenting slides (Prezi), playing a computer game (Breakout2, 2048) or even running a fake virus scanner (Kaspersky, McAfee, Sophos). But while the decoy application is on the screen, the underlaying system is automatically infected and ransacked. 
 
 How the CIA dramatically increased proliferation risks 
 
 In what is surely one of the most astounding intelligence own goals in living memory, the CIA structured its classification regime such that for the most market valuable part of "Vault 7" — the CIA's weaponized malware (implants + zero days), Listening Posts (LP), and Command and Control (C2) systems — the agency has little legal recourse. 
 
 The CIA made these systems unclassified. 
 
 Why the CIA chose to make its cyberarsenal unclassified reveals how concepts developed for military use do not easily crossover to the 'battlefield' of cyber 'war'. 
 
 To attack its targets, the CIA usually requires that its implants communicate with their control programs over the internet. If CIA implants, Command & Control and Listening Post software were classified, then CIA officers could be prosecuted or dismissed for violating rules that prohibit placing classified information onto the Internet. Consequently the CIA has secretly made most of its cyber spying/war code unclassified. The U.S. government is not able to assert copyright either, due to restrictions in the U.S. Constitution. This means that cyber 'arms' manufactures and computer hackers can freely "pirate" these 'weapons' if they are obtained. The CIA has primarily had to rely on obfuscation to protect its malware secrets. 
 
 Conventional weapons such as missiles may be fired at the enemy (i.e into an unsecured area). Proximity to or impact with the target detonates the ordnance including its classified parts. Hence military personnel do not violate classification rules by firing ordnance with classified parts. Ordnance will likely explode. If it does not, that is not the operator's intent. 
 
 Over the last decade U.S. hacking operations have been increasingly dressed up in military jargon to tap into Department of Defense funding streams. For instance, attempted "malware injections" (commercial jargon) or "implant drops" (NSA jargon) are being called "fires" as if a weapon was being fired. However the analogy is questionable. 
 
 Unlike bullets, bombs or missiles, most CIA malware is designed to live for days or even years after it has reached its 'target'. CIA malware does not "explode on impact" but rather permanently infests its target. In order to infect target's device, copies of the malware must be placed on the target's devices, giving physical possession of the malware to the target. To exfiltrate data back to the CIA or to await further instructions the malware must communicate with CIA Command & Control (C2) systems placed on internet connected servers. But such servers are typically not approved to hold classified information, so CIA command and control systems are also made unclassified. 
 
 A successful 'attack' on a target's computer system is more like a series of complex stock maneuvers in a hostile take-over bid or the careful planting of rumors in order to gain control over an organization's leadership rather than the firing of a weapons system. If there is a military analogy to be made, the infestation of a target is perhaps akin to the execution of a whole series of military maneuvers against the target's territory including observation, infiltration, occupation and exploitation. 
 
 Evading forensics and anti-virus 
 
 A series of standards lay out CIA malware infestation patterns which are likely to assist forensic crime scene investigators as well as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Nokia, Blackberry, Siemens and anti-virus companies attribute and defend against attacks. 
 
 CIA hackers developed successful attacks against most well known anti-virus programs. These are documented in AV defeats, Personal Security Products, Detecting and defeating PSPs and PSP/Debugger/RE Avoidance. For example, Comodo was defeated by CIA malware placing itself in the Window's "Recycle Bin". While Comodo 6.x has a "Gaping Hole of DOOM". 
 
 CIA hackers discussed what the NSA's "Equation Group" hackers did wrong and how the CIA's malware makers could avoid similar exposure. 
 
 Examples 
 
 The CIA's Engineering Development Group (EDG) management system contains around 500 different projects (only some of which are documented by "Year Zero") each with their own sub-projects, malware and hacker tools. 
 
 The majority of these projects relate to tools that are used for penetration, infestation ("implanting"), control, and exfiltration. 
 
 Another branch of development focuses on the development and operation of Listening Posts (LP) and Command and Control (C2) systems used to communicate with and control CIA implants; special projects are used to target specific hardware from routers to smart TVs. 
 
 Some example projects are described below, but see the table of contents for the full list of projects described by WikiLeaks' "Year Zero". 
 
 UMBRAGE 
 
 The CIA's hand crafted hacking techniques pose a problem for the agency. Each technique it has created forms a "fingerprint" that can be used by forensic investigators to attribute multiple different attacks to the same entity. 
 
 This is analogous to finding the same distinctive knife wound on multiple separate murder victims. The unique wounding style creates suspicion that a single murderer is responsible. As soon one murder in the set is solved then the other murders also find likely attribution. 
 
 The CIA's Remote Devices Branch's UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques 'stolen' from malware produced in other states including the Russian Federation. 
 
 With UMBRAGE and related projects the CIA cannot only increase its total number of attack types but also misdirect attribution by leaving behind the "fingerprints" of the groups that the attack techniques were stolen from. 
 
 UMBRAGE components cover keyloggers, password collection, webcam capture, data destruction, persistence, privilege escalation, stealth, anti-virus (PSP) avoidance and survey techniques. 
 
 Fine Dining 
 
 Fine Dining comes with a standardized questionnaire i.e menu that CIA case officers fill out. The questionnaire is used by the agency's OSB (Operational Support Branch) to transform the requests of case officers into technical requirements for hacking attacks (typically "exfiltrating" information from computer systems) for specific operations. The questionnaire allows the OSB to identify how to adapt existing tools for the operation, and communicate this to CIA malware configuration staff. The OSB functions as the interface between CIA operational staff and the relevant technical support staff. 
 
 Among the list of possible targets of the collection are 'Asset', 'Liason Asset', 'System Administrator', 'Foreign Information Operations', 'Foreign Intelligence Agencies' and 'Foreign Government Entities'. Notably absent is any reference to extremists or transnational criminals. The 'Case Officer' is also asked to specify the environment of the target like the type of computer, operating system used, Internet connectivity and installed anti-virus utilities (PSPs) as well as a list of file types to be exfiltrated like Office documents, audio, video, images or custom file types. The 'menu' also asks for information if recurring access to the target is possible and how long unobserved access to the computer can be maintained. This information is used by the CIA's 'JQJIMPROVISE' software (see below) to configure a set of CIA malware suited to the specific needs of an operation. 
 
 Improvise (JQJIMPROVISE) 
 
 'Improvise' is a toolset for configuration, post-processing, payload setup and execution vector selection for survey/exfiltration tools supporting all major operating systems like Windows (Bartender), MacOS (JukeBox) and Linux (DanceFloor). Its configuration utilities like Margarita allows the NOC (Network Operation Center) to customize tools based on requirements from 'Fine Dining' questionairies. 
 
 HIVE 
 
 HIVE is a multi-platform CIA malware suite and its associated control software. The project provides customizable implants for Windows, Solaris, MikroTik (used in internet routers) and Linux platforms and a Listening Post (LP)/Command and Control (C2) infrastructure to communicate with these implants. 
 
 The implants are configured to communicate via HTTPS with the webserver of a cover domain; each operation utilizing these implants has a separate cover domain and the infrastructure can handle any number of cover domains. 
 
 Each cover domain resolves to an IP address that is located at a commercial VPS (Virtual Private Server) provider. The public-facing server forwards all incoming traffic via a VPN to a 'Blot' server that handles actual connection requests from clients. It is setup for optional SSL client authentication: if a client sends a valid client certificate (only implants can do that), the connection is forwarded to the 'Honeycomb' toolserver that communicates with the implant; if a valid certificate is missing (which is the case if someone tries to open the cover domain website by accident), the traffic is forwarded to a cover server that delivers an unsuspicious looking website. 
 
 The Honeycomb toolserver receives exfiltrated information from the implant; an operator can also task the implant to execute jobs on the target computer, so the toolserver acts as a C2 (command and control) server for the implant. 
 
 Similar functionality (though limited to Windows) is provided by the RickBobby project. 
 
 See the classified user and developer guides for HIVE. 
 
 Frequently Asked Questions 
 
 Why now? 
 
 WikiLeaks published as soon as its verification and analysis were ready. 
 
 In Febuary the Trump administration has issued an Executive Order calling for a "Cyberwar" review to be prepared within 30 days. 
 
 While the review increases the timeliness and relevance of the publication it did not play a role in setting the publication date. 
 
 Redactions 
 
 Names, email addresses and external IP addresses have been redacted in the released pages (70,875 redactions in total) until further analysis is complete. 
 
 Over-redaction: Some items may have been redacted that are not employees, contractors, targets or otherwise related to the agency, but are, for example, authors of documentation for otherwise public projects that are used by the agency. Identity vs. person: the redacted names are replaced by user IDs (numbers) to allow readers to assign multiple pages to a single author. Given the redaction process used a single person may be represented by more than one assigned identifier but no identifier refers to more than one real person. Archive attachments (zip, tar.gz, ...) are replaced with a PDF listing all the file names in the archive. As the archive content is assessed it may be made available; until then the archive is redacted. Attachments with other binary content are replaced by a hex dump of the content to prevent accidental invocation of binaries that may have been infected with weaponized CIA malware. As the content is assessed it may be made available; until then the content is redacted. The tens of thousands of routable IP addresses references (including more than 22 thousand within the United States) that correspond to possible targets, CIA covert listening post servers, intermediary and test systems, are redacted for further exclusive investigation. Binary files of non-public origin are only available as dumps to prevent accidental invocation of CIA malware infected binaries. 
 
 Organizational Chart 
 
 The organizational chart corresponds to the material published by WikiLeaks so far. 
 
 Since the organizational structure of the CIA below the level of Directorates is not public, the placement of the EDG and its branches within the org chart of the agency is reconstructed from information contained in the documents released so far. It is intended to be used as a rough outline of the internal organization; please be aware that the reconstructed org chart is incomplete and that internal reorganizations occur frequently. 
 
 Wiki pages 
 
 "Year Zero" contains 7818 web pages with 943 attachments from the internal development groupware. The software used for this purpose is called Confluence, a proprietary software from Atlassian. Webpages in this system (like in Wikipedia) have a version history that can provide interesting insights on how a document evolved over time; the 7818 documents include these page histories for 1136 latest versions. 
 
 The order of named pages within each level is determined by date (oldest first). Page content is not present if it was originally dynamically created by the Confluence software (as indicated on the re-constructed page). 
 
 What time period is covered? 
 
 The years 2013 to 2016. The sort order of the pages within each level is determined by date (oldest first). 
 
 WikiLeaks has obtained the CIA's creation/last modification date for each page but these do not yet appear for technical reasons. Usually the date can be discerned or approximated from the content and the page order. If it is critical to know the exact time/date contact WikiLeaks. 
 
 What is "Vault 7" 
 
 "Vault 7" is a substantial collection of material about CIA activities obtained by WikiLeaks. 
 
 When was each part of "Vault 7" obtained? 
 
 Part one was obtained recently and covers through 2016. Details on the other parts will be available at the time of publication. 
 
 Is each part of "Vault 7" from a different source? 
 
 Details on the other parts will be available at the time of publication. 
 
 What is the total size of "Vault 7"? 
 
 The series is the largest intelligence publication in history. 
 
 How did WikiLeaks obtain each part of "Vault 7"? 
 
 Sources trust WikiLeaks to not reveal information that might help identify them. 
 
 Isn't WikiLeaks worried that the CIA will act against its staff to stop the series? 
 
 No. That would be certainly counter-productive. 
 
 Has WikiLeaks already 'mined' all the best stories? 
 
 No. WikiLeaks has intentionally not written up hundreds of impactful stories to encourage others to find them and so create expertise in the area for subsequent parts in the series. They're there. Look. Those who demonstrate journalistic excellence may be considered for early access to future parts. 
 
 Won't other journalists find all the best stories before me? 
 
 Unlikely. There are very considerably more stories than there are journalists or academics who are in a position to write them. ||||| WikiLeaks on Tuesday published a large cache of documents that it said are from the CIA that relate to its hacking tools. An intelligence source confirmed to The Wall Street Journal some of the contents of the documents. The files seem explosive at first glance. Internal CIA files are rarely seen, and WikiLeaks has used them to claim that the agency has "lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal." But some of the claims that WikiLeaks presented along with the documents have been criticized by security researchers as being exaggerated or overblown. WikiLeaks has claimed that secure messaging apps have been broken and that the CIA can hack into iPhones, which have widely been seen as a more secure choice than Android phones. Although the documents themselves are a rare and fascinating possible look into the CIA, there isn't much in there that should worry people for now, security researchers and professionals told Business Insider. Here's what you need to know as an iPhone or iPad user about the WikiLeaks "Vault 7" dump. View As: One Page Slides 
 
 False: The CIA was able to break into Signal and WhatsApp Apps like Signal and WhatsApp are commonly cited as secure messaging apps, meaning the government, companies, or hackers can't intercept messages in transit and read them. That's what security professionals call "end-to-end encryption." If the CIA were able to break into Signal, as several outlets and commentators have claimed, that would be a big deal. Even WikiLeaks is phrasing its claims to make it sound as if this is the case. The good news is that there is no evidence in the WikiLeaks dump that suggests the math that keeps messages secure — called "crypto" — that's behind either WhatsApp or Signal has been broken, as suggested by WikiLeaks. Instead, the claim is more fundamental. If the CIA were able to hack into an end user's iPhone or Android device, then Signal's crypto wouldn't matter. The CIA would be able to read what users are seeing and sending before it was encrypted by the software. If your computer or operating system, such as iOS, is already compromised, it doesn't matter how secure your messaging system is. Basically, the CIA "has some expensive, targeted ways to hack phones, and if your phone is hacked, well, your apps won't save you," Zeynep Tufekci, a New York Times contributor and associate professor at the University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science, told Business Insider. "If someone is specifically targeted and their phone is running an older version and thus vulnerable to exploitation, no 'secure' apps can protect you because the OS itself is compromised," Will Strafach, the CEO of Sudo Security Group and a security professional with extensive experience in iOS exploits, told Business Insider. Signal's underlying technology remains secure, it says. "End-to-end encryption has pushed intelligence agencies away from undetected and unfettered mass surveillance to where they have to use high-risk and targeted attacks," Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of Signal, told New York magazine. Strafach said, "WikiLeaks has an interest in getting big hype for their leaks, obviously, so it blurs what is and is not a concern." ||||| A data dump from WikiLeaks says the CIA can spy on you through your internet-connected Samsung television, which means government spies could know a lot more about you than whether you love Girls. 
 
 Earlier today, WikiLeaks released a trove of documents describing what it calls secret spying and hacking tools developed by the CIA and British intelligence. They include a Fake Off mode inserted into Samsung televisions. If activated, it makes the television appear to be off but keeps the power running so spies can capture audio and possibly video of anything in the room. Samsung has not yet responded to our request for comment. 
 
 It must be noted that the hack, codenamed Weeping Angel (a Doctor Who reference, by the way) applies only to Samsung televisions from 2012 and 2013 that feature outdated firmware versions 1111, 1112, and 1116. The exploit almost certainly impacts relatively few people, and there may be an easy way to tell if you've been hacked—Fake Off mode, as outlined in the 2014 document, leaves a blue LED on the back of the set illuminated. 
 
 Now, the CIA probably created this hack to target specific individuals, and it appears the hack can be loaded onto a television only via a USB firmware update that was recently disabled. So unless you're a known operative, it's unlikely the government compromised your TV. But we're sure you're still curious, so here's how to tell if it's happening: 
 
 The Telltale LED 
 
 In Fake Off mode, the screen appears off and the LEDs on the front of the set change color and dim, as you'd expect if you'd turned off your TV. Yet the TV remains powered and capable of recording conversations. Want to know if Big Brother is listening in? Look at the back of your set. The blue LED back there should be off. It remains illuminated in Fake Off mode, according to the documents WikiLeaks released. 
 
 Which TVs? 
 
 If you've got a Samsung from 2012 or 2013, check to see if you've got one of these models: From 2012: UNES8000F, E8000GF plasma, and UNES7550F. From 2013: UNF8000 series, F8500 plasma, UNF7500 series, and UNF7000 series. To determine your firmware version and to update it, go to the main menu, select Support, then select Software Update. 
 
 It is possible the CIA has updated Fake Off mode to address the telltale LED, and it's possible Samsung changed the LED on subsequent models. But the company acknowledged in 2015 that hackers could compromise the voice-control feature in some sets, and it took steps at the time to patch the problem. 
 
 Be Seeing You 
 
 The companies making internet-connected smart televisions have drawn criticism for collecting and sharing user data. If you want effective protection from unscrupulous companies, shifty hackers, and government spies, simply disconnect your TV from the internet. But if you remain worried, there's only one sure-fire method for preventing that: unplug the TV. ||||| In what appears to be a major breakthrough for law enforcement, and a possible privacy problem for Apple customers, a major U.S. government contractor claims to have found a way to unlock pretty much every iPhone on the market. 
 
 Cellebrite, a Petah Tikva, Israel-based vendor that's become the U.S. government's company of choice when it comes to unlocking mobile devices, is this month telling customers its engineers currently have the ability to get around the security of devices running iOS 11 (right up to 11.2.6). That includes the iPhone X, a model that Forbes has learned was successfully raided for data by the Department for Homeland Security back in November 2017, most likely with Cellebrite technology. 
 
 The Israeli firm, a subsidiary of Japan's Sun Corporation, hasn't made any major public announcement about its new iOS capabilities. But Forbes was told by sources (who asked to remain anonymous as they weren't authorized to talk on the matter) that in the last few months the company has developed undisclosed techniques to get into iOS 11 and is advertising them to law enforcement and private forensics folk across the globe. Indeed, the company's literature for its Advanced Unlocking and Extraction Services offering now notes the company can break the security of "Apple iOS devices and operating systems, including iPhone, iPad, iPad mini, iPad Pro and iPod touch, running iOS 5 to iOS 11." Separately, a source in the police forensics community told Forbes he'd been told by Cellebrite it could unlock the iPhone 8. He believed the same was most probably true for the iPhone X, as security across both of Apple's newest devices worked in much the same way. 
 
 iOS 11 was only released in September last year and was even praised by Cellebrite competitor Elcomsoft for new features that were designed to make it harder for forensics experts to hack into an iPhone. That included protections against forced unlocks with fingerprints, a tactic previously used by U.S. police in the field. 
 
 Though it's always wise to take the claims of profit-focused vendors with a pinch of salt, whatever flaws Cellebrite found in Apple's tech in the last half year, they're likely significant; just last year, the company warned about a decline in its ability to break into iPhones. 
 
 To take advantage of the Cellebrite service, which "can determine or disable the PIN, pattern, password screen locks or passcodes on the latest Apple iOS and Google Android devices," cops have to send the device to Cellebrite first. In its labs, the company then uses whatever secret exploits it has to crack the lock and either hands it back to investigators so they can take data from the device, or Cellebrite can do that for them. As Forbes previously detailed, this can be relatively inexpensive, costing as little as $1,500 per unlock. Given there's a $1 million price tag for a single iPhone vulnerability, that's cheap. 
 
 Cellebrite could put its latest iPhone unlocking tech into the software it sells to customers. But that would mean Apple could test the tool and potentially figure out a way to stop it working, explained Don Vilfer, a partner at private forensics firm VAND Group, who welcomed the new services. Vilfer said his company has already had some success with the iOS 11 service, in a case where a client's employee wouldn't give over their passcode for their work iPhone, though he recalled it was an iPhone 6 model, not one of the most recent devices. 
 
 Neither Apple nor Cellebrite had provided comment at the time of publication. 
 
 For the general user, they should be aware that the unlocks require physical access to the device. Cellebrite doesn't do such work remotely. And, of course, it's always a cat and mouse game where Apple is continually patching iOS in response to vulnerabilities emerging, so it could close the holes at some point in the future. Users are, generally, advised to download the latest operating system to stand the best chance of remaining secure. 
 
 iPhone X examined 
 
 It also appears the feds have already tried out Cellebrite tech on the most recent Apple handset, the iPhone X. That's according to a warrant unearthed by Forbes in Michigan, marking the first known government inspection of the bleeding edge smartphone in a criminal investigation. The warrant detailed a probe into Abdulmajid Saidi, a suspect in an arms trafficking case, whose iPhone X was taken from him as he was about to leave America for Beirut, Lebanon, on November 20. The device was sent to a Cellebrite specialist at the DHS Homeland Security Investigations Grand Rapids labs and the data extracted on December 5. (Saidi's case is due to go to trial on July 31. His legal team didn't respond to requests for comment). 
 
 From the warrant, it wasn't clear just how the police got into the iPhone X in the first place, nor does it reveal much about what data was inside. Back when the iPhone X was launched, some fears were raised about the possibility for investigators to simply lift the device to a suspect's face to unlock it via Apple's Face ID facial recognition. Researchers also claimed to have found ways to dupe the Face ID tech into unlocking with a mask. The DoJ prosecutor on the case declined to comment, whilst the DHS didn't respond to requests for comment. 
 
 But the ability to crack open almost any iDevice on the market is a significant moment for law enforcement, not just in America, but across the globe. Police have been left scrambling for ways into iPhones ever since Apple started improving its security with each new release. Layers of encryption have become increasingly difficult to penetrate, as highlighted in the now-infamous tussle between the Cupertino giant and the FBI in San Bernardino, where the feds wanted an unwilling Apple to help them access the iPhone 5C of San Bernardino murderer Syed Rizwan Farook. 
 
 'Hoarding iPhone vulnerabilities' 
 
 Cellebrite has no doubt benefited from the cat and mouse game being played out by the government and Silicon Valley giants. Many U.S. policing and intelligence agencies, including the FBI and the Secret Service, are customers. As detailed by Forbes last year, the company scored record contracts with a variety of agencies, most notably the Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch of the DHS, which spent $2 million on one deal alone. Customs and Border Protection is also a client. 
 
 At the time of the ICE contract, civil rights activists raised concerns over the use of such powerful technology to search Americans' devices. Speaking about the latest developments, Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney Adam Schwartz said the way in which the government did business with the likes of Cellebrite was "of great concern." He said it was clear that Cellebrite was hoarding vulnerabilities rather than disclosing them to vendors like Apple, which would lead to patches and better security for the general public. "All of us who're walking around with this vulnerability are in danger," he added. 
 
 "When it comes to the international border, as the EFF has argued in court and in Congress, the government really needs to get a warrant before it searches our phones. It's all the more true when we see the ever expanding power of governments to get into those phones." 
 
 UPDATE Cellebrite provided some additional specifics to Forbes on Wednesday, claiming it can unlock all iOS versions up to 11.2.6, the most recent iteration of Apple's operating system. 
 
 A spokesperson added: "With its service offering, Cellebrite can retrieve (without needing to root or jailbreak the device) the full file system to recover downloaded emails, third-party application data, geolocation data and system logs. Agencies can either provide the device already unlocked, furnish the known passcode, or use Cellebrite’s Advanced Unlocking Services to unlock the device. 
 
 "Once the device is unlocked and/or extracted, it is returned to the originating agency. Any extracted data is also sent to the agency in encrypted form to ensure privacy and protect operational information." 
 
 They declined to provide more details on the nature of the exploits required to open the latest iPhones. Sources close to Apple had previously suggested the company thought Cellebrite's techniques involved older, now-patched vulnerabilities. That appears to be false, if Cellebrite's statement is accurate.
– It's being called the CIA's "Snowden moment"—and it reveals secrets that paranoid time-travelers from the 1950s would find completely unsurprising, including suggestions that the agency has been spying on people through their TVs. The CIA is scrambling to deal with the fallout from WikiLeaks' release Tuesday of a vast trove of data on the agency's hacking tools. A former senior intelligence official tells the Washington Post that the leak, which experts believe is genuine, could "cause grave if not irreparable damage to the ability of our intelligence agencies to conduct our mission." A roundup of coverage: One hack, code-named Weeping Angel, allows spies to capture audio and possibly video from Samsung smart TVs that appear to be turned off. Wired has a guide to telling whether your TV has been hacked. PC World reports that the WikiLeaks release included snippets of code that antivirus vendors can now use to determine whether hacking attempts originated at the CIA. MIT Technology Review describes the leaked information, including news that the CIA has found vulnerabilities in iOS and Android, as "sinister" but not "particularly Earth-shattering" from a technological point of view. Business Insider examines some of WikiLeaks' claims and finds that there's no evidence that the CIA was able to crack the encryption of apps like Signal and WhatsApp. Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, tells the New York Times he's disturbed by signs that the government knew about vulnerabilities in electronic devices and kept them quiet to make spying easier. "Those vulnerabilities will be exploited not just by our security agencies, but by hackers and governments around the world," Wizner says. "Patching security holes immediately, not stockpiling them, is the best way to make everyone's digital life safer." Forbes spoke to security experts from several companies about the leak. They said the information about the CIA's technological capabilities is unsurprising, but that it should serve as a reminder to people that they cannot fully trust the security of their devices. "People need to wake up to the fact that they need to take responsibility for maintaining the privacy of their information and make no assumptions," says Ajay Arora, CEO of Vera. "At the end of the day, no one has your best interests in mind but you—people can't even trust their own government anymore. This is the tragic new normal we have to all unfortunately accept." Companies including Google, Samsung, and WhatsApp declined to comment, the Washington Post reports. Apple released a statement saying the issues disclosed in the leak were patched in a recent update and that they "always urge customers to download the latest iOS to make sure they have the most recent security update." "Imagine a world where the actual CIA spends its time figuring out how to spy on you through your TV. That's today," tweeted Edward Snowden, though he added that while it may not feel like it, end-to-end encryption has actually made computer security a lot better than it used to be.