Softpedia >News >Security
Softpedia Homepage   

Vault 7: CIA Can Bypass WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram Encryption

If you thought your communications were safe, they aren't if the CIA chooses to put a target on you and your devices

Mar 7, 2017 15:09 GMT  ·  By
End-to-end encryption can be bypassed by the CIA
   End-to-end encryption can be bypassed by the CIA

Wikileaks has opened Vault 7 to reveal the wide hacking capacity the CIA possesses. One of the many things the agency can do is render useless the encryption layers surrounding our favorite messaging apps, including WhatsApp and Signal. 

All those encryption layers users rely upon when using WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Weibo, Confide or Cloackman mean nothing because these techniques developed by the CIA allowed them to bypass them all.

According to the trove of files made public by Wikileaks, the CIA has numerous divisions that work to create malware with the specific intent of taking control over iPhones, Android devices and more.

Well, one of them has used zero-day vulnerabilities found in the operating systems, built malware exploiting them, and then used these to bypass any encryption layers, including in messaging apps such as those mentioned above.

A division for every OS

The analysis WikiLeaks shared with the world indicates the CIA's malware and hacking tools are built by the Engineering Development Group (EDG), a software development group within the Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), which is a department belonging to the Directorate for Digital Innovation (DDI) within the CIA.

The EDG developed, tested, and offered operational support for all backdoors, exploits, malware, trojans, viruses and any other kind of malware created by the CIA and put to use in its covert operations.

Another division of the CIA, namely the Mobile Devices Branch, developed numerous attacks to remotely hack and control popular smartphones, making them inform the CIA about the user's geolocation, as well as audio and text communications. It could also covertly activate the phone's camera and microphone to turn the device into spying gear.

The CIA has specially created divisions working on ways to crack Android and iOS and how to weaponize both types of devices. The branch handling iOS has created malware to infest, control and exfiltrate data from iPhones, iPads and more. Similarly, the unit targeting Android has made it a point to weaponize Android "zero-day" bugs. These were either developed inside the CIA or obtained from GCHQ, NSA or cyber arms contractors.

We'll share more information about this as we go through the collection of files Wikileaks has exposed today.