New Snowden Leaks Show NSA Attacked Anti-Virus Software

New submitter Patricbranson writes: The NSA, along with its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), spent years reverse-engineering popular computer security software in order to spy on email and other electronic communications, according to the classified documents published by the online news site The Intercept. With various countries' spy agencies trying to make sure computers aren't secure (from their own intrusions, at least), it's no wonder that Kaspersky doesn't want to talk about who hacked them.

Comments

No wonder AV is so slow...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

1) Get full copy of file to scan in memory
2) Check file for viruses
3) Send complete copy to national HQ, er, I mean, check the AV database
4) Open file

If you use an anti-virus its domestic surveilance

[sasparillascott]

Basically the NSA and its Stasi partners are directly compromising / attacking U.S. citizens (and other world citizens) computer security software. This is significant as it shows just how much at direct odds with the general interests of the U.S. citizenry (to have secure computers and internet infrastructure) the U.S. surveillance state has secretly chosen - a direct contradiction to the population's general interests.

If you dive into the article you'll see that all AntiVirus vendors are listed as "targets" except for the few that are U.S. and British based - presumably because they've already co-opted them into the Five Eyes Stasi population surveillance business group. This also shows the direct betrayal the NSA and Co. made years ago for the U.S. population (after the U.S. citizenry democratically said No to the Clipper Chip and U.S. government surveillance of their communications / computing related equipment). The NSA etc. betrayed that democratic choice in secret and deliberately kept hidden and has / is working for absolutely wide open computer / backbone equipment access for them & their Five Eyes partners with back doors in everything (even in your anti-virus software as this article shows) so they can spy on whomever, whenever, wherever they want (and we know that include lots of domestic surveillance). That also means the NSA chose this everything is vulnerable environment for the "bad guys" too - as back doors are open for everyone - another direct betrayal of the main computer related interest of the U.S. citizenry. JMHO...

Re:Wow. Just wow

[dunkindave]

The NSA and GCHQ were doing their jobs!

That was essentially my thought. These organizations' charters include being able to attack adversaries if necessary, and they were looking into methods of attack. Where is the surprise? The technical arm of every other country's spy agencies are doing the exact same thing, though perhaps with less ability, so explain to me what about this is news?

Re:That's no domestic surveillance

[mrchaotica]

People defending Snowden as a pro-american whistleblower that should be pardonned by US authorities.

As one of those people, I'm very willing to forgive Snowden (and the journalists who are sorting through/releasing the info) if he accidentally mixed some disclosures of legitimate* NSA actions in with the many, many illegitimate ones.

Important caveats:

1. This assumes that (a) the release is accurate and (b) that Snowden is responsible for it. At the moment, we have no reason to believe that either is the case. In particular, I contend that it's much more likely for disclosures of legitimate* NSA activities to be falsely attributed to Snowden as a smear campaign than to be genuinely done by him.
2. You may notice that I used the word "legitimate" with an asterisk. By this I mean "legitimate from the US perspective." Other countries my disagree, but they don't get to decide what is and isn't legal under US law. They're free to defend themselves, of course... (Similarly: I don't get upset about foreign spy agencies attempting to attacking the US; I get upset at the NSA if it fails to stop them.)

"bath salts", you know, for your "bath"

[Thud457]

NSA Attacked Anti-Virus Software

And ya'll laughed at John McAfee and called him crazy!