The CIA has considered developing technology to hack the driving systems of road vehicles including cars and trucks, according to a WikiLeaks dump of agency documents released earlier today.
From WikiLeaks’ press release:
As of October 2014 the CIA was also looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks. The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations.
CIA meeting notes from 2014 show that the agency’s Embedded Devices Branch (EDB) was looking at “vehicle systems (e.g VSEP)” as a “potential mission area.”
This appears to have been part of a wider effort on the part of the CIA to take control of the “internet things” — a term used in the technology community to refer to the growing connectivity of physical devices through the internet.
The meeting notes specifically notes “the internet of things” as another potential EDB mission area.
The CIA has also successfully breached Samsung’s Smart TVs, and now has the ability to covertly switch on the Smart TVs’ microphones to monitor nearby audio, even when the devices are switched off.
Much of this vast hacking power is now in the hands of third parties as well as the CIA. According to the WikiLeaks, dump, the CIA has lost control of much of its hacking arsenal to unknown parties, after the cyber-weapons were “circulated among former U.S government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner.”
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