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WikiLeaks Starts Releasing Source Code For Alleged CIA Spying Tools (vice.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: WikiLeaks published new alleged material from the CIA on Thursday, releasing source code from a tool called Hive, which allows its operators to control malware it installed on different devices. WikiLeaks previously released documentation pertaining to the tool, but this is the first time WikiLeaks has released extensive source code for any CIA spying tool. This release is the first in what WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says is a new series, Vault 8, that will release the code from the CIA hacking tools revealed as part of Vault 7. "This publication will enable investigative journalists, forensic experts and the general public to better identify and understand covert CIA infrastructure components," WikiLeaks said in its press release for Vault 8. "Hive solves a critical problem for the malware operators at the CIA. Even the most sophisticated malware implant on a target computer is useless if there is no way for it to communicate with its operators in a secure manner that does not draw attention." In its release, WikiLeaks said that materials published as part of Vault 8 will "not contain zero-days or similar security vulnerabilities which could be repurposed by others."

38 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Kaspersky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Curious how the summary doesn't include the part about the CIA having tools to impersonate Kaspersky Labs. Would that conflict with the narrative too much?

    I knew it!! The CIA is in cahoots with Kaspersjy who is in cahoots with the Russian government!

    Get this, the Russian government has been infiltrated by a small group of Cardinals from the Catholic Church - who are really Muslims working for the Saudi Royal Family.

    What the Saudi Royal Family doesn't know is that it has been infiltrated by the Massad of Israel. But the Massad of Israel is taking orders from a small Orthodox Jewish Sect in the Cayman Islands. And you guessed it, they are really Soto Buddhists. But those Soto Buddhists in Japan who control those Jews who control the Muslims who control the Saudis who control the Catholic Church Cardinals are being manipulated themselves!

    By none other than Donald Trump. BUT - he's being manipulated by Paula White - his "spiritual advisor". And who is she? She is an Evangelical Gospell of MONEY preacher.

    BUT she is being manipulated by the Koch brothers. And the Koch brothers are being bought out by none other than GEORGE SOROS! YES, him!

    But little do we all know that Georgia Soros is being manipulated by the CIA.
    So, yes. In a typical government cluster fuck, the CIA is manipulating themselves.
    Hey, it's a job, right?

  2. Hive impersonates Kapersky certs and netwrok traff by Train0987 · · Score: 1

    CIA's Hive can also hide it's outbound network traffic from compromised devices to look like traffic going to Kapersky. That's also in the leak posted by Wikileaks.

  3. First, do no harm by Sarten-X · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Zero-days and malware are just a part of the operation.

    Any attack also requires an infrastructure to send the phishing emails, host fake login pages, make bogus links look trustworthy, and mask the origin of attacks. Often, setting up that infrastructure is the most time-consuming and expensive part of an attack, so it's often reused for several attacks. That is one of the most reliable mechanisms for identifying the source of an attack, by identifying the infrastructure networks used, and associating groups of attacks together, then connecting specific attacks with specific political actions.

    Now, thanks to WikiLeaks, any attacker can start to build their own infrastructure from source, that looks just like the CIA. This in turn opens the door to more successful untraceable attacks and false-flag operations. By raising the banner of "journalism", WikiLeaks has yet again contributed to more damaging attacks and escalating conflicts.

    Once upon a time, the term "journalist" carried a social expectation of trying to present the truth without harm. Dumping unfiltered source code doesn't offer any new insight except to a few good researchers, but it does enable significant harm and neuters those same researchers' usual techniques.

    I'm unimpressed.

    --
    You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    1. Re:First, do no harm by Antiocheian · · Score: 2

      The Wikileaks source could have sold those secrets to the highest bidder. Would that make you feel more secure instead ?

    2. Re:First, do no harm by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We have safely assume that Wikileaks aren't the only ones who have these tools. They have likely already been stolen by others, just like the NSA exploits before them.

      Plus for most of us the CIA is just another adversary we want to defend against, no different than any other malicious actor out there.

      I much prefer to know about these tools and vulnerabilities so I can defend against them. Patches will come quickly to quality software.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:First, do no harm by Sarten-X · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Alternatively, WikiLeaks could have consulted a few trusted security researchers to get any insight from the code, and released that insight with limited snippets of code. While that would likely aid attackers in making a similar infrastructure, they'd have to invent their own boilerplate, likely allowing the different reimplementations to be identifiable. The insight from the experts would also contribute more to coherent and realistic discussions on the actual capabilities of the tool, rather than encouraging more "the CIA is hacking everyone!" panic.

      Even if the toolset had been sold to one "highest bidder", that would only be one other attackerto identify. The shared infrastructure would be a little confusing for researchers at first, but continued attacks would show distinct operation patterns as a signal rising above the noise. Yes, that does actually strike me as being more secure than opening the tools up to everyone at once, since it's now so much easier to hide any given attack in the higher amount of noise.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    4. Re:First, do no harm by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      The problem with trying to fix what the security services are doing is the security services have lost control of their tool sets over the years.
      The US and UK have a set of tools. What was once CIA, NSA, GCHQ, Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch only is now floating around other nations and staff.
      Hardware and software to rent, for a shared faith, domestic politics, to buy.
      The US and UK shared methods with trusted experts in NATO. To impress new friends in NATO, EU bureaucracy? To get staff in the EU to trust and support the NSA, CIA, GCHQ over the decades?
      Ex and former staff in NATO studied the tools and shared the with in their own nations. Other police and federal police groups within NATO get a copy from their own governments...
      Soon once restricted US/UK software is floating around with ex staff, former staff, criminals, cults, faith groups, the media, lawyers, political parties in many nations.

      Greek wiretapping case 2004–05 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...–05
      SISMI-Telecom scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      With real security experts in gov and the private sectors now aware of what is been hidden via fake US AV software, experts can secure their systems from spies, other mil, gov, ex and former staff.
      Great security protects good governments and the productive innovation of the private sector from other governments, lazy competitors.
      Who wants junk crypto to stay around for years been accessed by anyone with cash and gov/mil connections... or a shared faith?

      Allow the private sector and gov's the information to fix networks, software, OS and firewalls.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    5. Re:First, do no harm by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      So you are saying, other people can imitate the US government security apparatus by pretending to be other people, pretending to be other people (not an error). Do you not see the ludicrousness of your proposition. You can pretend to look like the CIA pretending to look like Kaspersky in order to attack any Russian business for simply being Russian or just hacking Russian security software in order to hack Russian corporations using it.

      The US is breaking computer crimes across the globe to chiefly blackmail others into working against their countries interests in favour of US corporations and fuck the citizens of those countries (the faster they die the better), to steal industrial secrets, to blame foreign corporations for US government hacks, to promote war and discord just because America and of course straight up individual enrichment, using the US government spy apparatus to gather insider trading data.

      The US government, as run by the deep state and shadow government has become mind bogglingly corrupt and self destructive all driven through insatiable greed. All it's secrets need to be exposed to bring it down, the sooner the better. What a corrupt pieces of shit US politicians to anything wikileaks does, US government straight up mass murdering people across the globe to feed insatiable war industrial complex masquerading behind NATO(north American territorial occupation farce). You are fucking murdering millions, how many have wikileaks killed versus stopping some of the killing you are not, not all mind you, the USA just enjoys murdering people too much for that but at least saving some by exposing crimes of an extremely corrupt USA.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    6. Re:First, do no harm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Patches will come quickly to quality software.

      That's a problem. Most software is not of good quality, especially the most commonly used.
      Yes, even in the professional markets. ESPECIALLY in the professional markets, actually. I've used some right shitheaps in my time.

    7. Re:First, do no harm by whyyisthissohard · · Score: 1

      Yeah let's let the shadow government keep raping anyone they feel like. Great idea.
      The solution to the problem isn't painless. We let this cancer get into the heart of our supposed democracy.

    8. Re:First, do no harm by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Since when is Wikileaks a journalist? They haven't ever been caught faking anything, or bending the facts to fit a pre-existing political bias. How's that journalism?

      Once upon a time, the term "journalist" carried a social expectation of trying to present the truth without harm.

      LOL that time is long past. Journalists spread fake news all the time, whenever it satisfies their emotional needs and validates their pre-existing political biases. It's very menacing if journalists with the loudest claim to authoritative credibility are using social media constantly to entrench falsehoods in the publicâ(TM)s mind. Four viral claims made by journalists in the last week that are wholly false.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  4. Re:Somebody shoot this treasonous cunt by aristotle-dude · · Score: 1

    Please.

    You have to give out your name first citizen. How else are they going to find you?

    --
    Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
  5. Do no harm? by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    Umm... why are you expecting "journalists" to abide by the Hippocratic Oath? Their entire existence is based around exposing those with harmful behaviors. Given the CIAs track record, I'm not surprised they are considered harmful.

    Also, exposing the zero-days will ensure that software is fixed and malware signatures will be added antivirus databases.

    Now, thanks to WikiLeaks, any attacker can start to build their own infrastructure from source, that looks just like the CIA. This in turn opens the door to more successful untraceable attacks and false-flag operations. By raising the banner of "journalism", WikiLeaks has yet again contributed to more damaging attacks and escalating conflicts.

    That sure sounds like they have created an incentive for government agencies to focus on defending systems rather than exploiting systems.

    The lesson to be learned here is simple: never create something that you wouldn't want to fall into the hands of your worst enemy.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  6. Re:Somebody shoot this treasonous cunt by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You do have to wonder why Wikileaks and Assange are so eager to target everything U.S. - the intelligence agencies, political fuck-ups, armed forces fuck-ups...

    Sure the U.S. isn't perfect and you will always find something to criticize, but there are much worse countries in the world, actively fighting against liberties, free press, human rights, etc. the most prominent and important being China and Russia. How come there are never any leaks from these autocratic countries?

    By always putting the spotlight on the U.S. Wikileaks and Assange are playing right into the hands of these autocratic regimes, not just by exposing classified information, but also ideologically by repeatedly pointing out the U.S. as apparently being no better or even worse than the countries ruled by despots. Which in the grand scheme of things is simply false. And if you think so, you are deluded. Where would you rather live? The U.S. or Russia / China?

    Considering all of this it's hard to shake the feeling that Wikileaks and Assange have degenerated into being agents for Russia. Maybe they have actually been infiltrated and controlled by Russia in one way or another.

  7. Re:Hive impersonates Kapersky certs and netwrok tr by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    The NSA and CIA, GCHQ, 5 eyes have to move data around the globe after collection.
    What better way out of a network than a firewall set to trust an AV product?
    Its just the AV updating...
    If anyone looks, its all the work of other "nations". The interesting part is how dependant and fixated the West is on the talking points and the need to use trusted products to hide their collect it all data flow.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  8. Re:Somebody shoot this treasonous cunt by benjfowler · · Score: 1

    I'm a dual national, so I am willing and quite able to call this disgraceful, evil Quisling cunt the traitor that he is.

    He's a fucking traitor, and he's going to burn in hell.

  9. Re:The American Empire by benjfowler · · Score: 1

    Eat a dick, Ivan.

    You "nationalists" have been rumbled. We will _get_ you, and smash your drunken, Chekist-infested shithole country down, the way we SHOULD have in 1991.

  10. Re:Kaspersky by benjfowler · · Score: 1

    Olgino is the tip of a gigantic, lavishly-funded iceberg. Think of it, not as a troll farm, but an entire archipelago of vory, guns for hire, spooks and misfits being paid lavishly to undermine the West. This programme is extremely well funded -- about a billion $US a year at least. This is fascist Russia's great big moonshot to destroy the West before we choke them out by cutting off their oil money.

  11. Re: Americans by benjfowler · · Score: 1

    Shut up, moskal.

    Actually, quite a few of us DO understand, that the CIA, the NSA and the FBI are the silent guardians who stand between a world of rules and order -- and a world run by Chekist-mafia scum like Vladimir Putin.

    Western intelligence may not always get it right, but I trust them VASTLY more than the mafia-Chekist nightmare that is Russia and it's thralls/vassals.

  12. Re: Americans by benjfowler · · Score: 1

    With Russia's thumb on the scale.

    Trump is not legitimate.

  13. Re:Somebody shoot this treasonous cunt by guestapoo · · Score: 4, Informative

    How come there are ***never*** any leaks from these autocratic countries?

    Never??? You can go to Wikileak and use the function 'search'. In case of it takes you too much time, here is a story published on Slashdot:
    Wikileaks Releases Documents It Claims Detail Russia Mass Surveillance Apparatus

    Keep in mind that Wikileaks is a tool to publish anonymous documents, you can't ask Wikileaks to publish what they don't have.

    By the way, when you are SO angry that Assange 'seems to support repressive regimes', and DEMAND Wikileaks 'to do somethings' with these governments, I don't know where you were at those topic:
    YouTube Suspends Account of Popular Chinese Dissident
    Apple Pulls Anti-Censorship Apps from China's App Store

    Bonus, don't blame Wikileaks and Assange for his 'so-called-anti-USA':
    Cisco Leak: 'Great Firewall' of China Was a Chance to Sell More Routers

  14. Re:Somebody shoot this treasonous cunt by turp182 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is about spying. Snowden showed that the US is #1!!!

    I'm sure Russia has a good spy program, as well as England, Israel, and China. Probably some European countries as well (maybe South Korea, but aimed at the North). Australia is in there as well, which is surprising to me.

    And the US's spending on military is unmatched (but probably envied). We spend about as much as the next top 10 countries combined, those other countries represent well over 2 billion people (China and India are in there):

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Same goes for spending on nuclear weapons:

    http://www.icanw.org/the-facts...

    Why is the US a primary target of things such as Wikileaks? Because everyone else in the world is a target of ours. And our own citizens are as well. Sad, as someone currently in power would say.

    --
    BlameBillCosby.com
  15. Re: Kaspersky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No one said that. Do you understand how an argument works?

    Someone criticizes the CIA
    You start talking about the FSB

    If someone asks you what time it is, do you tell them the weather?

  16. Re:Somebody shoot this treasonous cunt by geekymachoman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    > You do have to wonder why Wikileaks and Assange are so eager to target everything U.S. - the intelligence agencies, political fuck-ups, armed forces fuck-ups...

    Russia, or China are mostly quiet, doing stuff in their own countries for the most part ( that YOU might consider as anti whatever, but locals not so much ).
    The US on the other hand is a loud mouth cowboy who pretends he's all just and moral while bombing the crap out of everything, rigging elections, installing puppet presidents, doing assassinations, drug trade, and then complaining when somebody does similar.

    Nobody gives a shit what China is doing... to other Chinese.
    You cannot be on the top, deciding who gets what, and not having somebody to criticize you. So far, only wikileaks does that. Nobody expects anything from MSM anymore.

  17. Re:The American Empire by benjfowler · · Score: 1

    Sign me up.

  18. Re: Kaspersky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    KGB is also evil.

    Why do you people not understand that saying the CIA is bad does not mean the KGB is good?

    They are both bad. Lying, cheating and murdering is what governments do.

  19. The Real Hero Spies: Snowden, Binney, Drake, etc. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There are a handful of real heroes from the intelligence community.

    Edward Snowden
    Bill Binney
    Thomas Drake
    Robert David Steele
    Ray McGovern

    And all the rest who have stood up to protect us from Big Brother.

  20. Re: Kaspersky by fafalone · · Score: 2

    Ah, the classic argument 'not a murdering pedo, therefore moral and good'. We surrender. You're right, who cares that the government is actively working to strip our civil liberties and instituting a police state. Who cares the CIA spies on citizens in bulk, and turns over that info to domestic law enforcement for non-terror, non-violent crimes. They're not all the way there, and they're not raping and murdering kids (though civilian police officers already get away with such behavior), or machine gunning protesters, therefore we should all just shut up and worship our benevolent protectors.
    You can fuck right off, you have zero credibility to talk about morality either with that 'not the worst therefore good' crap.

  21. Re:Somebody shoot this treasonous cunt by whyyisthissohard · · Score: 1

    autocratic

    What does this word mean to you? You're using it as newspeak. It's objective definition, never mind several subjective ones that might be commonly used, in this context is "sovereign country".
    You seem to adopt the kit worldview that nobody has the right to run their country any other way than the way the US does.

    What civil liberties do you think we have when our population is meticulously brainwashed to only accept the official point of view? The Bank rules the media (and everything else really), the media rules the mob, and the mob rules social life.
    In China and Russia they have censorship laws it is true, but they are just being up front about what the West lies about. Just because some one breaks one of those laws doesn't mean it's enforced. Just because it's the law that we be able to speak freely doesn't mean we aren't punished as badly or worse than the governments of China or Russia would punish us.

    There are invisible lines in every culture that you are punished for crossing. They simply have theirs configured in a different way due to circumstance, not due to malicious intent toward their populations.

    We have long, long ago abandoned the model of government the Founding Fathers set for us. Bribery and greed - the lack of regulation against the banks - has made this happen. Our Constitution has been raped and everyone has been bribed to stand by and watch it happen. God bless anyone tugging at the seams of this nightmare.

  22. B-b-but Russia! by Rujiel · · Score: 1

    Hasn't anyone told you that people are tired of the russia defense? Someone meeds to update your script.

    1. Re:B-b-but Russia! by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Hasn't anyone told you that people are tired of the russia defense? Someone meeds to update your script.

      I thought we had progressed to the "well it's not as bad as North Korea" defence?

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  23. Thank you by Rujiel · · Score: 1

    It's good to see that at least a few people here aren't paid shills. The spooks have been shitting on assange since the afghan war diaries dropped. You can tell they really hate wikileaks.

  24. Re:Somebody shoot this treasonous cunt by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

    It is just utterly bizarre to hear this, "Yeah, well if you don't like it, go to Russia!" line of thought from Leftists. WTF? You spend 50 years telling us this was bullshit. "I only criticize you America not because it harms you, but I know how much better you could be" is the line I always got.

    When did you become such Sinophobic/Russophobic bigoted jingoists? How many countries has China bombed? How can anyone say they would make a worse world leader than America? Americans are the least educated and knowledgeable of foreign affairs, languages, and disparate cultures, societies, and social norms among all Westernized countries and the least exposed universally.

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  25. Re:Somebody shoot this treasonous cunt by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

    Isn't it utterly bizarre how Assarange was a good guy and a hero when he was exposing the crimes of the US government with Snowden and Manning leaks? And now that he's doing what he always has done, exposing the crimes of the US government, suddenly now he's changed into a dirty commie spy? WTF? How does this make any sense to anyone?

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  26. Re:Somebody shoot this treasonous cunt by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    How come there are never any leaks from these autocratic countries?

    Because of observer bias. Specifically your bias. Your bias that you don't actually look on Wikileaks, your bias that you read US news that is all too eager to point out US issues.

    Also there's population bias. If someone leaks to you hundreds of gigabytes of USA criticisms, do you say: "Well I'd like to share it, but really I can only share 1GB because I only have 1GB from Russia and 1GB from China, and god forbid my site starts looking biased* in the information I release"

    *I'm being facetious. Not releasing the leaked information due to this reasons IS an example of bias.

  27. Re:Somebody shoot this treasonous cunt by quenda · · Score: 1

    I'm a dual national, so I am willing and quite able to call this disgraceful, ... traitor

    Ah, so you are a dual national, and by the transitive property of citizenship, that makes Assange an American sworn to the flag?
    Please renounce your Australian citizenship and help raise our average IQ.

    Anyway, I think you will find that the USA was founded by traitors, by definition, as they waged war against their king. So it should not be the insult you imagine.

  28. Re: Americans by fafalone · · Score: 1

    Worst traitor huh...
    What about someone who wraps their evil in the flag, purporting to fight for rights while working to destroy them. Deep rooted authoritarian fascism under the guise of 'I'm the good guy, and the government is standing up for freedom' with the hidden agenda of obliterating what remains of our civil liberties, to give American intelligence and law enforcement carte blanche to intrude as much as they desire in their own citizens lives, free from due process and accountability.

    I'd say someone like that, even if you think Snowden was a traitor.. someone like that is an absolute monster in comparison, sadistic and ruthless in desire to exercise power without constraint, destroying the freedom they purport to defend. That comment and your previous ones reveal You are such a person. Snowden was a hero, it's people like you who betray this country by betraying the bill of rights, due process, and the very notion of liberty; not even suspicion being required to strip a citizen of their privacy and rights. Snowden should receive this nations highest honors as you face the charge of treason.

  29. Re:Somebody shoot this treasonous cunt by CommanderRyalis · · Score: 1

    Well said