WikiLeaks Vault 7 Leak Claims CIA Bugs ‘Factory Fresh’ iPhones
WikiLeaks Vault 7 Leak Claims CIA Bugs ‘Factory Fresh’
iPhones
By S.J. Prince 9:22 am EDT, March 23, 2017 Updated 1:07
pm EDT, March 23, 2017
A new WikiLeaks Vault 7 leak titled “Dark Matter” claims,
with unreleased documents, that the Central Intelligence Agency has been
bugging “factory fresh” iPhones since at least 2008. WikiLeaks further claims
that the CIA has the capability to permanently bug iPhones, even if their
operating systems are deleted or replaced.
The documents are expected to be released in the next
24-hours. The announced was made after a “press briefing” that WikiLeaks
promoted on its Twitter.
A summary of the documents has been released on the
WikiLeaks website. It reads:
Today, March 23rd 2017, WikiLeaks releases Vault 7 “Dark
Matter”, which contains documentation for several CIA projects that infect
Apple Mac Computer 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 “DerStake” are also included in
this release. While the DerStake1.4 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.
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