WikiLeaks Vault 7 shows that the CIA has developed a huge range of attacks against iPhones since at least 2008.
Yesterday, Wikileaks released another series from their ‘Vault 7’ CIA hacks called ‘Dark Matter’ where they reveal how Apple products are infected.
According to Wikileaks, ‘Dark Matter’ contains documentation for several CIA projects that infect Apple MAC computer firmware developed by the CIA’s Embedded Development Branch (EDB). Interestingly… the infection persists even if the operating system is re-installed.
Today, March 23rd 2017, WikiLeaks releases Vault 7 “Dark Matter”, which contains documentation for several CIA projects that infect Apple Mac firmware (meaning the infection persists even if the operating system is re-installed) developed by the CIA’s Embedded Development Branch (EDB). These documents explain the techniques used by CIA to gain ‘persistence’ on Apple Mac devices, including Macs and iPhones and demonstrate their use of EFI/UEFI and firmware malware.
Among others, these documents reveal the “Sonic Screwdriver” project which, as explained by the CIA, is a “mechanism for executing code on peripheral devices while a Mac laptop or desktop is booting” allowing an attacker to boot its attack software for example from a USB stick “even when a firmware password is enabled”. The CIA’s “Sonic Screwdriver” infector is stored on the modified firmware of an Apple Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter.
“DarkSeaSkies” is “an implant that persists in the EFI firmware of an Apple MacBook Air computer” and consists of “DarkMatter”, “SeaPea” and “NightSkies”, respectively EFI, kernel-space and user-space implants.
Documents on the “Triton” MacOSX malware, its infector “Dark Mallet” and its EFI-persistent version “DerStarke” are also included in this release. While the DerStarke1.4 manual released today dates to 2013, other Vault 7 documents show that as of 2016 the CIA continues to rely on and update these systems and is working on the production of DerStarke2.0.
Also included in this release is the manual for the CIA’s “NightSkies 1.2” a “beacon/loader/implant tool” for the Apple iPhone. Noteworthy is that NightSkies had reached 1.2 by 2008, and is expressly designed to be physically installed onto factory fresh iPhones. i.e the CIA has been infecting the iPhone supply chain of its targets since at least 2008.
While CIA assets are sometimes used to physically infect systems in the custody of a target it is likely that many CIA physical access attacks have infected the targeted organization’s supply chain including by interdicting mail orders and other shipments (opening, infecting, and resending) leaving the United States or otherwise.
While the US spin machine hurls accusations about Russian election meddling, it’s worth nothing the US is a seasoned pro at interfering in elections.
Ask an average American who makes a habit of following government-mouthpiece corporate media about interference in national elections and you’ll likely elicit a nebulous response concerning Russian hackers and a plan to install Donald Trump in the White House — but you probably won’t hear a single syllable pertaining to United States government’s actual attempts to do the same.
On Monday, FBI Director James Comey confirmed for the first time publicly the bureau is officially investigating hotly contentious allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election — but, even if proven true, such geopolitical escapades better characterize the routine behavior of accuser than of accused.
“The F.B.I., as part of our counterintelligence effort, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 president election,” the director announced, adding the bureau would conduct a probe to discern whether Trump’s associates had contact with Russian officials.
Despite that the U.S. has hypocritically exerted influence over foreign elections in all corners of the globe — in fact, it has arrogantly done so a whopping 81 times between 1946 and 2000, alone — with just one-third of those operations undertaken overtly.
US agencies have interfered with 81 elections not including coups. #CIA
For months, mainstream media parroted murky accusations hurled by politicians — keen to point a finger of blame for the apparently stultifying victory of a former reality television host on someone — that The Russians had somehow surreptitiously undermined the election-centric foundation of American Democracy.
While that has yet to prove true, this new Red Scare constitutes a duplicitous attempt by the pot to call the kettle … an election meddler.
Researcher Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Politics and Strategy — an expert on the topic at hand — discussed the lengthy but incomplete list of times the U.S. government has interfered in other nations’ elections with NPR’s Ari Shapiro.
Asked for examples where this tampering tangibly altered results, Levin stated,
“One example of that was our intervention in Serbia, Yugoslavia in the 2000 election there. Slobodan Milosevic was running for re-election, and we didn’t want him to stay in power there due to his tendency, you know, to disrupts the Balkans and his human rights violations.
“So we intervened in various ways for the opposition candidate, Vojislav Kostunica. And we gave funding to the opposition, and we gave them training and campaigning aide. And according to my estimate, that assistance was crucial in enabling the opposition to win.”
Levin reiterated the more blatant methods with which the U.S. asserts dominance — through the overt coups or all-out regime changes branding the nation a notorious interventionist — are not among the list of the 80-plus attempts to manipulate the electoral outcome.
As for the issue of pot versus kettle, Levin explained that — although Russia and other powerful nations indisputably employ similar tactics — the United States has been quite prodigious in its effort.
“Well, for my dataset, the United States is the most common user of this technique. Russia or the Soviet Union since 1945 has used it half as much. My estimate has been 36 cases between 1946 to 2000. We know also that the Chinese have used this technique and the Venezuelans when the late Hugo Chavez was still in power in Venezuela and other countries.”
Dozens of House Democrats have collectively paid $4 million since 2009 to Pakistani IT professionals now under criminal investigation who had access to House members’ email and computer files.
Five people employed by members of the House of Representatives remain under criminal investigation for unauthorized access to Congressional computers. Former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz employed at least one of those under investigation.
The criminal investigation into the five, which includes three brothers and a wife of one of the men, started late last year, as reported by Politico in February. The group is being investigated by US Capitol Police over allegations that they removed equipment from over 20 members’ offices, as well as having run a procurement scheme to buy equipment and then overcharge the House.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said last week Capitol Police are receiving additional help for the investigation. “I won’t speak to the nature of their investigation, but they’re getting the kind of technical assistance they need to do that, this is under an active criminal investigation, their capabilities are pretty strong but they’re also able to go and get the kind of help they need from other sources,” Ryan said.
The brothers, Abid, Jamal and Imran Awan, worked as shared employees for various members of the House, covering committees relating to intelligence, terrorism and cybersecurity, which included the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces of the Armed Services Committee.
Imran’s wife, Hina Alvi, and Rao Abbas, both of whom worked as House IT employees, are also under investigation.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
The group were banned from accessing the computers as a result of the investigation but, as of earlier this month, Imran Awan remains as an “technology adviser” to former Democratic National Committee chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was forced to resign in July following revelations that she worked to further Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the Democratic primary at the expense of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
News of the brothers’ investigation has sparked speculation that it may be tied to the hack of the DNC servers, the contents of which were first released by Guccifer 2.0 and later published on WikiLeaks.
Russian actors have been accused of being behind the hack, which Democrats claim contributed to Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump. There have also been reports that the DNC hack came from an insider.
@Cernovich Can’t blame the Russians for Awan brothers, why is no one talking about them since were investigating leaks!
@TomFitton What is the actual proof specifically that in fact it was Russia doing hack of DNC because Awan Brothers issue disturbs me
— Cheryl Aschenbrenner (@CherylAschenbr2) March 21, 2017
An email between DNC staffers in April 2016, which was released by WikiLeaks, references a staff member named Imran and how this person has access to the passwords for Wasserman Schultz’s iPad.
Garret Bonosky, deputy director of office of the DNC chair, tells Amy Kroll: “I have to get [this iPad] thing figured out. Need to make sure I have her username and password before I delete and reload the app.”
“I do not have access to her ipad password, but Imran does,” Kroll replies, later writing: “Just spoke to Imran, call me whenever GB and I’ll update you, don’t delete anything yet.”
Another email from the DNC hack, dated December 2016, references Imran once again. Wasserman Schultz’s assistant Rosalyn Kumar tells scheduler Anna Stolitzka: “[Nancy] Pelosi is doing [a] closed door meeting. No staff or anyone allowed. Kaitlyn come to Rayburn room and get her iPad for Imran.”
6-Figure Salaries
The brothers were paid high salaries for their work with various House members, above the median salary for Congressional staffers.
Imran, who started working for Wasserman Schultz in 2005, received $164,600 in 2016, with close to $20,000 of that coming from Wasserman Schultz.
Bush fired several U.S. Attorneys to help cover up a pedophile ring being run out of the D.C. hotels involving Congressmen, Senators and reporters!
This was the Franklin Scandal. The Bush administration fired the agents investigating the crimes to cover it up. U.S. senators and congressmen were covering up the Dusty Foggo government lobbyist and military prostitution and pedophilia ring in Washington involving legislators, news reporters, military officers and high government officials. Alberto Gonzales and President Bush fired San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam because she was probing the Dusty Foggo / Jack Abramoff D.C. sex ring.
According to a long-time senior intelligence agent the Washington, DC Hilton, Ritz Carlton and Sheraton Hotels were used for compromising House and Senate members, National Media hosts who had sex with children in a legislative and media Blackmail ring.
“The whole Republican and Democratic Parties were for sale, the House, Senate and the White House.”
“Poppy Bush and Abramoff were up to their eyeballs in this kid sh*t,” said the Federal Agent.
Supposedly convicted Lobbyist Jack Abramoff provided male and female heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, bisexual and child prostitutes sexual services to numerous US Congressmen, US senators, national media hosts and other federal officials who were compromised and made susceptible to blackmail at three Washington hotels.
The Washington Hilton was specifically used for sex with children because it has what the agent termed a “super secure section for VIPs that is out of public view and which reportedly employs no camera surveillance, an area able to hold around 6-10 vehicles so that no one could observe abducted, abused or drugged children flown in from other states who were coming to or leaving the hotel.” Hilton employees began to become suspicious of Abramoff’s operation, so children were moved to the Washington Ritz-Carlton according to other intelligence officials.
On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.
AGENTS: BUSH FIRINGS OBSTRUCTED SEX / SPY PROBE TomFlocco.com Foggo sex ring probe linked to forged Iraq dossier, Israeli espionage, convicted lobbyist Abramoff
According to U.S. intelligence sources, President Bush obstructed justice
last December when he had senior advisor Karl Rove and White House Counsel
Harriet Miers instruct Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to fire eight
U.S. attorneys who were among several others conducting ongoing public
corruption and secret national security grand jury investigations
connected to an espionagea**linked prostitution / pedophile sex ring
operating at the Washington Ritz-Carlton and other DC hotels, whose
clients included U.S. senators and congressmen, elite Washington news
reporters and high government officialsa**some of whom were named by an
intelligence insider.
Central to the scandal is fired U.S. attorney Carole Lam of California who
was reportedly conducting testimony before grand juries linking indicted
former Bush CIA Executive Director Kyle a**Dustya** Foggo and convicted
Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff to the sex ring, Israeli espionage, GOP
Under Secretary of Defense for policy Douglas J. Feith, a forged British
intelligence dossier used by Mr. Bush to deceive Americans into supporting
war against Iraq and an attempt to plant weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
in Iraq before the war via an intelligence pipeline through Dubai and
Turkey. READ MORE
U.S. intelligence: Sen. Leader William Frist and reporter Robert Novak alleged as regular clients
by Tom Flocco
Washington—May 5, 2006—TomFlocco.com—A long-time top-level government agency official joined a national security expert in confirming grand jury testimony last month, revealing that male and female heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, bisexual and child prostitutes provided sexual services to numerous congressmen, senators, national media hosts and other federal officials who were compromised and made susceptible to blackmail at three Washington hotels.
“The whole Republican Party was for sale—the House, Senate and the White House,” said a well-respected federal agency official with impeccable credentials who declined to be named but who is familiar with testimony and sources close to the grand jury probing Jack Abramoff.
Patrick Fitzgerald
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury heard several agents testify in April that the “Watergate, Ritz-Carlton and Sheraton Hotels in Washington, DC were used to compromise legislators and news-people with prostitution services, the financing of which is directly linked to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Marc Rich and Abramoff,” said national security expert Thomas Heneghan.There are no corporate media reports as to which White House officials participated in the hotel sex ring activities with House and Senate members; however, Heneghan said U.S. Senate Leader and 2008 presidential candidate William Frist was alleged to be a frequent visitor to the hotels according to U.S. intelligence agents.
Frist is reportedly a close friend of alleged Bush 43 male consort and former Knoxville, Tennessee mayor Victor Ashe according to federal agents.
Heneghan also alleged additional prostitute customers as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former CNN host-reporter Robert Novak, both of whom were introduced into the sex-ring by GOP reporter and male prostitute Jeff Gannon, who visited the Bush White House living quarters 200 times without the assignations being recorded in visitor logs.
Jack Abramoff
The genesis of the Valerie Plame CIA leak allegedly took place during one of Novak’s visits with an Abramoff hooker at one of the hotels according to the sources.The corruption and crimes surrounding the indicted Republican lobbyist were widespread and far-reaching enough to cause Fitzgerald to impanel a separate grand jury, often referred to by intelligence officials as the “Franklin grand jury,” which is hearing testimony and examining Abramoff linked evidence tied to the Iraq War, September 11 and related issues.
Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin was arrested for leaking classified U.S. government information to AIPAC officials Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman who reportedly leaked information to Israel concerning a controversial proposal by Department of Defense hardliners to destabilize Iran.
The federal source wishing to remain anonymous said that additional government officials are currently testifying this month before the Franklin grand jury about Abramoff, the GOP-linked prostitution ring and its ties to AIPAC.
“Photographs of politicians in compromising positions have reportedly already been used as blackmail to silence politicians who would speak the truth about the 2000 election fraud in Florida, 9-11, Iraq/yellowcake/WMD and how Jack Abramoff and Netanyahu were the pimps for the operation,” said Heneghan.
President Bush has emphatically denied that he personally knows Abramoff, despite CIA records indicating the indicted lobbyist visited the White House 200 times during the first ten months of the Bush presidency—often enough for a personal visit on every business day of each month, according to wide news reports.
Despite the daily White House visits, Bush said “I’ve never sat down with him and had a discussion with the guy,” adding, “I’m also mindful that we live in a world in which those pictures will be used for pure political purposes,” attempting to justify his unwillingness at first to release photos of him chatting amicably with Abramoff.
Fitzgerald is reportedly convinced that the Bush administration wanted Valerie Plame-Wilson’s identity as a CIA official leaked because her intelligence team had identified Israeli Mossad operatives inside Iran who were to receive weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to be delivered through Turkey and planted in Iraq to further the president’s case for war, said the intelligence expert.
“The financing for these whorehouses is linked directly to AIPAC, Benjamin Netanyahu, Marc Rich and Jack Abramoff; and the money trail ties back to American International Group (AIG), Hank Greenberg and Doug Alexander—former British Minister of E-Commerce,” said Heneghan.
In an ominous prediction, Heneghan said, “It won’t be long before the un-compromised U.S. military may have to declare a State of Emergency and re-implementation of the Constitution under a special provision of the Naval Code, which would lead to the arrest and removal of the criminal government residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”(Bush and his thugs)
According to Heneghan, the Abramoff congressional sex ring is tied to the SunCruz Casino scandal, secret accounts at Riggs Bank and Crozier Bank, the 9-11 “hijacker” Venice, Florida flight schools, and former U.S. ambassador to Italy Mel Sembler and Doug Alexander—both of whom have been linked to the reported Florida 2000 election fraud—all of which is tied to a financial trail that connects narcotics trafficking to Al Qaeda and the congressional sex ring.
MSNBC host and former congressman Joe Scarborough, subject of a recent TomFlocco.com story, “is now cooperating with federal investigators in the Abramoff matter which has led the probe to the doorsteps of the AIPAC whorehouses now operating in Washington, DC,” said Heneghan.
The intelligence expert told us “Scarborough told federal investigators that he now believes his female staff member (Lori Klausutis) was murdered in his congressional office to silence her regarding knowledge of Alexander, Sembler, Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush and the Florida election 2000 coup d’ etat.”
UPDATE: Is this Joe Scarborough scandal Trump referred to in this Tweet?
So now that Matt Lauer is gone when will the Fake News practitioners at NBC be terminating the contract of Phil Griffin? And will they terminate low ratings Joe Scarborough based on the “unsolved mystery” that took place in Florida years ago? Investigate!
In a 2012 Wired article, entitled, “CIA Chief: We’ll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher,” then CIA Director David Petraeus heralded emerging technologies in relation to spying.
CIA Director David Petraeus unwinds with some Wii Golf, 2008. Photo: Wikimedia
With Wikileaks latest, largest dump of confidential CIA files ever published, the world is beginning to realize just how far gone our privacy rights are. They have become virtually nonexistent thanks to Obama’s two terms in office.
As far back as a five years ago, then CIA Director General David Petraeus was touting how hi-tech advances offered countless ways Americans can be spied on.
With the rise of the “Smart Home,” you are sending tagged, Geo-located data that the CIA can intercept in real-time when you use the lighting app on your phone to adjust your living room’s ambiance.
The CIA had a plan that smart meters, smart phones, smart TVs and other smart household devices installed in every hopelessly “Dumbed Down” American’s home would permit the Deep State complete invasive access to you in the un-private, unsafe sanctuary you call home.
MORE AND MORE personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them.
Earlier this month, Petraeus mused about the emergence of an “Internet of Things” — that is, wired devices — at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm. “‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,” Petraeus enthused, “particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft.”
All those new online devices are a treasure trove of data if you’re a “person of interest” to the spy community. Once upon a time, spies had to place a bug in your chandelier to hear your conversation. With the rise of the “smart home,” you’d be sending tagged, geolocated data that a spy agency can intercept in real time when you use the lighting app on your phone to adjust your living room’s ambiance.
“Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing,” Petraeus said, “the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.”
Petraeus allowed that these household spy devices “change our notions of secrecy” and prompt a rethink of “our notions of identity and secrecy.” All of which is true — if convenient for a CIA director.
The CIA has a lot of legal restrictions against spying on American citizens. But collecting ambient geolocation data from devices is a grayer area, especially after the 2008 carve-outs to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Hardware manufacturers, it turns out, store a trove of geolocation data; and some legislators have grown alarmed at how easy it is for the government to track you through your phone or PlayStation.
That’s not the only data exploit intriguing Petraeus. He’s interested in creating new online identities for his undercover spies — and sweeping away the “digital footprints” of agents who suddenly need to vanish.
“Proud parents document the arrival and growth of their future CIA officer in all forms of social media that the world can access for decades to come,” Petraeus observed. “Moreover, we have to figure out how to create the digital footprint for new identities for some officers.”
It’s hard to argue with that. Online cache is not a spy’s friend. But Petraeus has an inadvertent pal in Facebook.
Why? With the arrival of Timeline, Facebook made it super-easy to backdate your online history. Barack Obama, for instance, hasn’t been on Facebook since his birth in 1961. Creating new identities for CIA non-official cover operatives has arguably never been easier. Thank Zuck, spies. Thank Zuck.
Former CIA director Petraeus says US spies have damaged their relationship with Silicon Valley again #Vault7https://t.co/r0iLPGxoyP
