Julius Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks has promised that his organization would help companies like Apple, Google and Samsung to defend themselves against recently released hacking tools. The tools were released by the organization on 7th March. 2017.
“We have decided to work with them, to give them some exclusive access to some of the technical details we have, so that fixes can be pushed out.” Assange said.
The organization did not release the full content of the tools to prevent them from getting into the wrong hands. Smaller exploits could take a few days to patch, while exploits of IoT(Internet of Things) devices could lead to much lengthier processes.
This past week WikiLeaks uncovered “Vault 7”, a massive information dump of 8,700 classified primarily from the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The information has been mined from government contractors and hackers who have worked to penetrate American intelligence agencies. One of these hackers was the source for Vault 7.
According to WikiLeaks the CIA has “lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, Trojans, weaponized zero day exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation.” Vault 7 is being released in phases and the first stage, Zero One, “introduces the scope and direction of the CIA’s global covert hacking program.
Why would major tech companies be concerned about Vault 7? Most of the CIA’s hacking tools are able to easily spy on unsuspecting parties using average household and personal devices. . Some of the developed software can siphon data from Apple devices like iPhones. There are tools that can bypass Google’s Android operating system’s security. Other tools are targeted at systems running Windows, macOS, Linux, and even Samsung Smart TVs.
Tech companies are far from thrilled with Vault 7. Microsoft and Apple claim that they have patched many of the security breaches. Samsung commented that it is investigating to see whether the Vault 7 Smart TV exploit is true, while Google has declined to comment.
The CIA has declined to confirm or deny whether the documents are authentic.
