Sonic Screwdriver

2017: WikiLeaks opened methods of cracking of CIA of devices of Apple

On March 23, 2017 the WikiLeaks website published a new portion of confidential data of CIA. In them, in particular, methods of cracking and  infection of devices of Apple are described.

The new data array, promulgated WikiLeaks, received the name Dark Matter. It is devoted to a number of programs for cyber espionage and cracking of gadgets of Apple. These tools were developed and are used by the American intelligence agencies for 10 years.

Apple MacBook

Sonic Screwdriver allowing to implement in  devices of Apple of a surveillance program which cannot be deleted even  using reinstallation of the operating system became one of the mentioned programs. According to the website of leaks, these methods of cracking were developed in  2008.

Data on the NightSkies program which is used and updated by CIA since 2008 are also published. It is intended for espionage behind the iPhone smartphones and, according to the description, is established on the "net" devices which rolled off the production lines.

While tools of CIA are sometimes used for physical infection of a system of the victim, it is quite probable that many of the attacks with physical access happen to the help of invasion into logistic chains of the target organization, including interception of mail orders and other departures, says WikiLeaks.

Many instruments of cracking described in documents interact at the level of EFI/UEFI firmware (as BIOS). It means that password protection does not act on them, and after implementation they remain in a system practically forever. At the same time in most cases their installation requires physical access to the computer.

Apple commented on the published information. The company reported that vulnerabilities which, judging by data of WikiLeaks, could use in CIA were eliminated in iPhone in 2009, and probable vulnerabilities in  Mac computers were liquidated in the 2013th.