How the NSA Plans to Infect ‘Millions’ of Computers with Malware (Snowden Docs)
Source: The Intercept
NEWS
How the NSA Plans to Infect Millions of Computers with Malware
By Ryan Gallagher and Glenn Greenwald
12 Mar 2014, 9:19 AM EDT 9
One presentation outlines how the NSA performs industrial-scale exploitation of computer networks across the world.
Top-secret documents reveal that the National Security Agency is dramatically expanding its ability to covertly hack into computers on a mass scale by using automated systems that reduce the level of human oversight in the process.
The classified files provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden contain new details about groundbreaking surveillance technology the agency has developed to infect potentially millions of computers worldwide with malware implants. The clandestine initiative enables the NSA to break into targeted computers and to siphon out data from foreign Internet and phone networks.
The covert infrastructure that supports the hacking efforts operates from the agencys headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, and from eavesdropping bases in the United Kingdom and Japan. GCHQ, the British intelligence agency, appears to have played an integral role in helping to develop the implants tactic.
In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a targets computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive. In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computers microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites.
Read more: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/03/12/nsa-plans-infect-millions-computers-malware/
reddread
(6,896 posts)progressoid
(49,987 posts)TheBlackAdder
(28,186 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)and forget this all happened?
randome
(34,845 posts)And the article references 'a target's computer', which we can assume means a 'legitimate' target according to law and regulations. There is nothing in this article that matches the headline. If there is evidence that the NSA is doing this, or plans to, let's see it.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]
reddread
(6,896 posts)its a program.
questionseverything
(9,651 posts)The intelligence communitys top-secret Black Budget for 2013, obtained by Snowden, lists TURBINE as part of a broader NSA surveillance initiative named Owning the Net.
The agency sought $67.6 million in taxpayer funding for its Owning the Net program last year. Some of the money was earmarked for TURBINE, expanding the system to encompass a wider variety of networks and enabling greater automation of computer network exploitation.
Wilms
(26,795 posts)DUZY!
You crack me up.
go west young man
(4,856 posts)Excerpt:
US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has alleged the National Security Agency engaged in industrial espionage.
In an interview with Germany's ARD TV channel, the former NSA contractor said the agency would spy on big German companies that competed with US firms.
Mr Snowden, who was granted temporary asylum by Russia, also said he believed that US officials wanted to kill him.
His leaks caused outrage in Germany when it came to light Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone had been bugged.
randome
(34,845 posts)And spying on foreign individuals is not against the law. It may be a bit 'unseemly' but without knowing the context, reasons, etc. it's simply more of Snowden's 'Be afraid! Be very afraid!' act.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]
go west young man
(4,856 posts)If the information is being used by Booze, Allen, Hamilton who are a part of the Carlyle Group to place bets on the stock exchange it is illegal in a number of ways. I doubt there will be any prosecution because the US has gone right down the tubes when it comes to that kind of thing. But it is still illegal. Both Booze and Carlyle have made a decent climb on the stock market since Snowdon initiated the revelations. Both stocks have gone up in value by roughly a quarter since that time.
You really believe the NSA, GCHQ et al and not churning terabytes of data per second on millions nationally and internationally?
They are that's not in doubt .. someone I know assisted the Home Office in UK installing MIRROR routers at ISP major hubs. Transparent monitoring.
While I understand the need for security 'terrorists' are not stupid they can use PGP and other technologies.
Snowden merely confirmed what many already know.
It's getting fucking ridiculous I take cash to other countries when visiting as my Credit card Company impose a 3.75% fee on every transaction but if I carry more than $1,000/£1,000/!,000e they have the right to question where it came from .. it's a grand not a million but hey HSBC can launder billions and get a fine.
Why are we being monitored? The simple answer is total control. If I fart they will hear it if they wish by infecting my PC.
Ludicrous! By all means target persons of interest using due process but wholesale pffft!
randome
(34,845 posts)Because so far, Snowden has not. Rein the NSA in. Close them down, it's all the same to me. But conflating phone metadata records with 'spying on everyone' is silly.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]All things in moderation, including moderation.[/center][/font][hr]
merrily
(45,251 posts)And these are not the droid you're looking for, either.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)On the other hand I may switch back to FreeBSD.
whistler162
(11,155 posts)Has the Kenyan prince come through with your millions
baldguy
(36,649 posts)Are we at the point where "the Lizard People really control the world through the Illuminati" yet?
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,999 posts)baldguy
(36,649 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)you might miss something, or lose an opportunity to rebut nonsense.
not with you though.
nothing to be missed.
adios.
Lenomsky
(340 posts)He is a certifiable loon but some of what he says (not lizard people that was a TV show) makes complete sense.
I'm no conspiracy theorist but let's just be honest with ourselves we're getting taken for a ride by corporations and power elite.
I've discussed this with friends often 'I ask what will the world be lime in 300 years?' Th replies vary but I assume it will be wrecked so the power players make million/billions and play with there expensive toys with no regard for the planets future.
As I said in a prior post Snowden merely confirmed what we already know .. well those of us that can think for ourselves.
baldguy
(36,649 posts)Yet the Snowden fans treat him as the Second Coming, and Glenn Greenwald as his prophet.
And if someone points out that Snowden merely confirmed what we already know, that he conveniently changed his opinion about leakers only after the black guy got in the Oval Office, or that his actions are closer in style to those of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove than Daniel Ellsberg, or that his political associations indicate that he's a RW libertarian objectivist and not the liberal/progressive hero his fans make him out to be, which is further indicated his choice of the grifter-gadfly "journalist" to promote his tour of those bastions of freedom and individual liberty: China and Russia, and he also treated his girlfriend like shit - well the person that points that out must be a totalitarian fascist RW plant.
questionseverything
(9,651 posts)An implant plug-in named CAPTIVATEDAUDIENCE, for example, is used to take over a targeted computers microphone and record conversations taking place near the device. Another, GUMFISH, can covertly take over a computers webcam and snap photographs. FOGGYBOTTOM records logs of Internet browsing histories and collects login details and passwords used to access websites and email accounts. GROK is used to log keystrokes. And SALVAGERABBIT exfiltrates data from removable flash drives that connect to an infected computer./////////////////////////////
grok
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)siligut
(12,272 posts)We all have to copyright our data and incorporate ourselves, that would make their snooping theft and corporate espionage.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Once they go commercial with it, you have rights, just like your image etc. This applies to lots of people.
pragmatic_dem
(410 posts)Eating steak, Cypher exclaims that "ignorance is bliss".
cprise
(8,445 posts)pragmatic_dem
(410 posts)RC
(25,592 posts)Skype, Pay-Pal and Face Book.
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)cosmicone
(11,014 posts)and many iPhone and Android apps that demand to use stuff they don't need to. For example, why would a chess app need access to my contact list?
woodsprite
(11,911 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)I don't participate in them, but I also have no assurance that my data is safe when friends of mine submit to those games
go west young man
(4,856 posts)LittleGirl
(8,284 posts)thanks for sharing.
fascisthunter
(29,381 posts)...we are not living in a free country when our privacy is impacted, and when a government agency has that ability to use that private information for whatever it chooses. I thought the KGB was bad,now we have the NSA here doing some similar creepy shit but in a more modern age with more modern technology.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Did the whistleblowers show evidence it wasn't? Heck no. And they were terrible people!
KoKo
(84,711 posts)This means that data for Businesses can be hacked into and malware inserted to steal or misdirect contracts business proposals and competitor information. Meaning small businesses who can't afford sophisticated IT personnel (and use cloud to avoid server maintenance & upgrades )could have their private information stolen from cloud which gives an advantage to larger businesses that NSA Contractors could sell off. What's to stop some rogue contractors from stealing info to give to companies who pay them.
This is not only terrible from a personal standpoint but corrupts competitive business practices giving advantage to the large companies to keep out the smaller.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)just one of the many possibilities--imagine the power and control when all ur data belong to US...
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Historic NY
(37,449 posts)with the crap we post and repost and then send out to others.They don't need a Fake Facebook, the real one does enough.
merrily
(45,251 posts)We don't do it with tax dollars.
We don't do it secretly.
The Constitution does not constrain us, only the USG.
We probably won't be jailing anyone or extraordinary renditioning anyone or drone killing anyone.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)About what I'd expect from e-bay. Their purloined powerpoint slide, so good they use it twice, show this was a proposal for foreign intel collection, pointing across the Atlantic to targets in Europe and Africa:
and once more with feeling:
The presentation was evidently made in August 2009. That was a long time ago, and no evidence that it was adopted is presented in the article, the sole purpose of which is to swiftboat the current Dem admin, as usual.
Who would benefit from that I wonder?
grasswire
(50,130 posts)According to GG.
Release it. Release it.
blackspade
(10,056 posts)toby jo
(1,269 posts)From: that backwards middle east, or the 'commies' - hell,they'll never go away, then there's the 'chinaman' scare.
And if all this went away and we became a democratic global society? Well, then there would be criminals everywhere. And if they all went away, well then we'd have to watch just to make sure nobody got 'hurt'.
That black budget has got them on a sugar high, they'll never get off it.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)Read down into the article and you get this
It is unclear how many of the implants are being deployed on an annual basis or which variants of them are currently active in computer systems across the world.
Greenwald doesn't even know if, and has no proof of, these things are being used at all, just that it's a possible "plan." But it makes a great headline!
fascisthunter
(29,381 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)to track, spy and control politicians.
Somebody steps out of line, they get prosecuted for the skeletons in their data.
This is not supposition, the technology is being exploited, and the ramifications to
what we expect from our system of government are more than profound.
game over.
frwrfpos
(517 posts)IDemo
(16,926 posts)God bless America!
Dem4ever27
(49 posts)Is there some connection with the NSA? If this is a joke, please let me know, 'cause I don't get it.
IDemo
(16,926 posts)I neglected to include the all-important /sarcasm tag...
Dem4ever27
(49 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)WCLinolVir
(951 posts)If they want to get to you they will. Microsoft updates.