Top secret documents previously provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden have revealed that the US and Britain broke into the network of the world’s largest SIM card maker to compromise global communications.
According to the documents, founded by Snowden collaborator Glenn Greenwald, the US National Security Agency and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters, stole the encryption keys used to secure voice calls and texts from Gemalto, the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world. Gemalto makes two billion SIM cards every day. They are used by many wireless network providers around the world.
Read moreThe USA is engaging in “offensive cyber warfare,” spokesman for whistleblower organization WikiLeaks told, following the unmasking of a sophisticated hacking ring that has infected thousands of computers in over 30 countries.
Moscow-based security firm Kaspersky Labs revealed a trove of evidence showing that sophisticated surveillance systems had been embedded in thousands of computers belonging to officials, scientists, businessmen and journalists in states such as Russia, Iran and China starting from 2001, by what it called the Equation Group. The NSA hasn’t admitted sponsoring the Equation Group.
Read moreThe National Security Agency of the USA has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made by many top manufacturers, giving the agency the means to eavesdrop on the majority of the world's computers.
That long-sought and closely guarded ability was part of a cluster of spying programs discovered the security software maker that has exposed a series of Western cyberespionage operations. It found personal computers in 30 countries infected with one or more of the spying programs. The targets included government and military institutions, telecommunication companies, banks, energy companies, nuclear researchers, media, and Islamic activists.
Read moreThe Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that regulations covering access by Britain’s GCHQ to emails and phone records intercepted by the US National Security Agency breached human rights law.
Advocacy groups said the decision raised questions about the legality of intelligence-sharing operations between the UK and the USA. The ruling appears to suggest that aspects of the operations were illegal for at least seven years – between 2007, when the PRISM intercept programme was introduced, and 2014. The critical judgment marks the first time since the IPT was established that it has upheld a complaint relating to any of the UK’s intelligence agencies.
Read moreThe governments of the USA, UK and Canada characterize hackers as a criminal menace, warn of the threats they allegedly pose to critical infrastructure, and aggressively prosecute them, but they are also secretly exploiting their information and expertise, according to top secret documents.
In some cases, the surveillance agencies are obtaining the content of emails by monitoring hackers as they breach email accounts, often without notifying the hacking victims of these breaches. These revelations about the intelligence agencies’ reliance on hackers are contained in documents provided by Edward Snowden.
Read moreGerman researchers have discovered security flaws that could let hackers, spies and criminals listen to private phone calls and intercept text messages on a potentially massive scale – even when cellular networks are using the most advanced encryption now available.
The flaws, to be reported at a hacker conference in Hamburg this month, are the latest evidence of widespread insecurity on SS7, the global network that allows the world’s cellular carriers to route calls, texts and other services to each other. Experts say it’s increasingly clear that SS7 is riddled with serious vulnerabilities that undermine the privacy of the world’s billions of cellular customers.
Read moreOn human rights day Edward Snowden appeared by video link at an event organised by Amnesty International, le Monde, Mediaparte and Arte in Paris. The event, which was simultaneously translated, marks the first time Edward Snowden has spoken live to an audience in France.
Reacting to the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report into CIA torture programmes, Edward Snowden told his audience that the things that we did as a result of this programme are inexcusable crimes. And what we see is quite dangerous in the United States debate.
Read moreA secret message was delivered to the National Security Agency. An intelligence unit within the U.S. military’s Africa Command needed help to hack into Libya’s cellphone networks and monitor text messages. For the NSA, the task was easy.
The agency had already obtained technical information about the cellphone carriers’ internal systems by spying on documents sent among company employees, and these details would provide the perfect blueprint to help the military break into the networks. The NSA’s assistance in the Libya operation, however, was not an isolated case. It was part of a much larger surveillance program.
Read moreWikiLeaks’ Julian Assange tells influential Internet giant ‘works for US government’. The event was organized to promote When Google Met WikiLeaks, a book in which Assange retells the story of how he met Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.
The governments of the USA and the UK launched a furious campaign behind the scenes to do everything in their power to halt the publication of the cables, moves that were subsequently reported in the international press. WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of US State Department “diplomatic cables” that caused huge embarrassment in the White House.
Read moreThe State Department's unclassified email network has been temporarily shut down to update security protocols in the wake of a suspected hacking attack that occurred in early October. A senior State Department official confirmed that the Department recently detected activity of concern in portions of its unclassified email system.
As a result of that incident the State Department scheduled an outage this weekend of some Internet systems to implement security improvements to its main unclassified network. The official said the shutdown has impacted some of the State Department's unclassified email traffic as well as access to some public web sites.
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