Following after the publication of thousands of politicized emails during the US presidential election, Wikileaks has finally decided to turn its focus to the US intelligence services. That said, WikiLeaks, a renowned international non-profit organization that publishes secret information, news leaks, and classified media from anonymous sources have recently released a number of secret CIA files which gives concrete details of hacking tools that the government usually employs to break into users' computers, mobile phones and even smart TVs. Dubbed as Vault 7, the trove of documents was found to be the first of a number of disclosures that reveal the CIA's hacking abilities.
CIA's Vault 7
In one of their statements, WikiLeaks revealed that the series of publication is yet to be the largest intelligence publication in history. The organization continues to explain that the extraordinary collection, which is believed to have tantamount to more than several hundred million lines of code, which then gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. Additionally, it was found that the archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in what is known to be in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.
Furthermore, according to CBS News, former CIA acting director Michael Morrell said that because of what happened, they will have to start over again in terms of rebuilding tools to get information from our adversaries. Authorities said that the documents that have been spreading have also included certain discussions about compromising some internet-connected televisions in order to turn them into listening posts. Consequently, the said publications have apparently threatened to upend the confidence in an Obama-era government program, particularly the Vulnerability Equities Process, wherein several federal agencies have also warned technology companies about weaknesses in their software so they can be quickly fixed.
Are These Documents Real?
Meanwhile, as of the press time, despite the quick spread of the documents, the CIA has neither denied nor confirmed whether the documents are real, explaining that it does not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents. However, former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden took to Twitter to express his sentiments saying that the documents look authentic.
