TIL Desk/World/Paris-Anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks on Tuesday said it had obtained a top-secret trove of hacking tools used by the CIA to break into phones, communication apps and other electronic devices, and published confidential documents on those programs.
Among the most noteworthy WikiLeaks claims are that the Central Intelligence Agency, in partnership with other US and foreign agencies, has been able to bypass the encryption on popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, by hacking phones that use Google’s Android platform to collect audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.
Google declined to comment but said it was investigating the matter. If verified, the information in the documents would amount to yet another breach of classified material stolen in recent years from U.S. intelligence agencies. US officials said they were unaware of where WikiLeaks might have obtained the material.
