Wikileak’s Vault 7 release of information about the CIA’s cyberwarfare operations confirmed what many computer professionals have suspected.
The target of the CIA’s cyberwarfare operation is you, dear readers. The CIA was not improving the security of your smartphones, your laptops, and your computers. No, it was searching for ways to hack your devices. Once a PC or phone with a particular set of software is hacked, it has potentially been hacked on all similar configurations. The CIA’s toolbox is stuffed with a set of “master keys” – a sort of universal cyber lock-pick.
That means your iPhone, your Android phone, your Windows or Linux laptop or tablet, could be compromised at any time by the CIA, or any other person or organization which managed to obtain a copy of their hackware. And the CIA, instead of alerting manufacturers and distributors (and you, dear users) of vulnerabilities in their software, devised ways to exploit those vulnerabilities, to gather information from your devices. And those methods, that software, were available to untold numbers of cyberhackers.
Well, doesn’t it make you feel warm and safe to know that your own government has been working so hard to compromise your computer security? Your cellphone security? Your “smart” TV?
In America, TV watch you. Welcome to the sequel to 1984.
