Encrypted apps not as secure as you think: CIA can bypass Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp and Confide, reveal bombshell leaked documents
03/09/2017 / By JD Heyes
Encrypted apps not as secure as you think: the CIA can bypass Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp and Confide, reveal bombshell leaked documents.
A newly released treasure trove of documents by Wikileaks pertaining to the CIA’s massive cyber capabilities indicate that no matter how secure you think your wireless devices are, they really aren’t.
According to a press release from Wikileaks, among the CIA’s capabilities are the ability to bypass encrypted protrams like Signal, WhatsApp and Confide, among others, as well as tap into protected smart TVs, iPhones and devices powered by Android. (RELATED: Creepy Teddy Bear Caught Leaking Kids’ Private Conversations Online.)
WikiLeaks #Vault7 confirms CIA can effectively bypass Signal + Telegram + WhatsApp + Confide encryptionhttps://t.co/h5wzfrReyy
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 7, 2017
“The CIA also runs a very substantial effort to infect and control Microsoft Windows users with its malware,” Wikileaks said. “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.”
“Year Zero” pertains to the scope and aim of the CIA’s global hacking initiative, Wikileaks noted.
The technology and techniques developed by the spy agency allow it to monitor virtually all smart devices – TVs, cell phones, and other wired devices like Amazon’s Echo. It’s this technology that also enables the spy agency 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,” said the Wikileaks press release.
This capability gives the CIA unlimited and unstoppable power to tap any device owned by anyone, anywhere, anytime. What’s more, the targeted person likely would never even know he or she was being monitored – conversations, email communications and so forth – because the technology is virtually impossible to detect.
Smart devices are not the only ones targeted. The CIA’s technology can also permeate Microsoft and Apple operating systems such as “Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, Linux and more, such as EDB’s ‘HIVE’ and the related ‘Cutthroat’ and ‘Swindle’ tools,” Wikileaks said.
“There is an extreme proliferation risk in the development of cyber ‘weapons,’ said Wikileaks editor Julian Assange. “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.”
It’s important to point out that regardless of what you think of Assange, he has never been proven to be dishonest, nor have any of the revelations released by his organization been proven to be false.
According to the whistleblower organization, the materials were provided by someone within the U.S. intelligence community, much the same way former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked details in 2013 of the NSA’s wide-ranging domestic surveillance operations.
Eerie as these revelations are, some tech experts, government analysts and others formerly of the Deep State have been warning of these U.S. intelligence community capabilities for years. Just this week, Natural News published a piece warning computer users their privacy was at risk from Internet “fingerprinting” technology that tracks their every move online.
“Browser fingerprinting identifies a list of characteristics that are unique to your particular computer’s software and hardware that is then used to identify you,” the report noted. “It entails everything from your screen resolution to the fonts you have installed on your system. Banks and retail sites use the technique to authenticate users, and it is also used to target advertising by keeping track of your every move online and delivering ads that match your interests and habits.” (RELATED: WikiLeaks unveils largest cache of CIA documents ever; agency spies through smart TVs, smart phones and other wireless devices.)
It’s not possible to get a 100 percent accurate profile of a user, but this gets pretty close – somewhere in the 91 percentile.
Under Bush and Obama, our intelligence community has grown completely uncontrollable; it will take a determined effort by a president like Donald J. Trump to regain control of these agencies and make sure they begin working for the people once more, instead of against them.
And even he may not be able to handle the task.
J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.
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