CIA tried hacking Apple phones, tablets for a decade: Report
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has made sophisticated efforts for nearly a decade to break the security of Apple’s mobile phones and tablets, according to newly published top-secret documents.
CIA researchers have worked since 2006 to create surveillance "backdoors" into programs used by Apple’s iPhones and iPads, investigative news site The Intercept reported on Tuesday, citing documents obtained from US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Efforts to break into Apple products by CIA security researchers was part of a top-secret program by the US and British governments to hack "secure communications products, both foreign and domestic" including Google Android phones, according to The Intercept.
“By targeting essential security keys used to encrypt data stored on Apple’s devices, the researchers have sought to thwart the company’s attempts to provide mobile security to hundreds of millions of Apple customers across the globe,” the report said.
“US government-sponsored research has been aimed at discovering ways to decrypt and ultimately penetrate Apple’s encrypted firmware. This could enable spies to plant malicious code on Apple devices and seek out potential vulnerabilities in other parts of the iPhone and iPad currently masked by encryption,” it added.
Apple and Google say they have strengthened encryption methods to protect the privacy of users of their products and that this was in response to the large-scale spying of Internet users by the National Security Agency (NSA) revealed by Snowden in 2013.
US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron have expressed concern that the use of stronger encryption tools could prevent governments from tracking terrorists who are planning attacks on the West.
Separately, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a major new lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of a broad group of organizations who are challenging the US government's mass surveillance programs.
The ACLU, a civil liberties advocacy group, filed the lawsuit against the NSA and the US Department of Justice over mass spying programs that it says violate core provisions of the US Constitution.
AHT/HRJ
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