Wikileaks founder Julian Assange appeared in a webcast conference earlier today, where he stated that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has "lost control of its entire cyber-weapons arsenal." He elaborated that the arsenal includes "weaponized" computer viruses, malware, and trojans. The malicious programs designed by the CIA are said to turn devices like smartphones, smart TVs, and other computer systems into "listening devices" that the agency can use to monitor the conversations of anyone.
Blasting News has featured the recent WikiLeaks 'Vault 7' data dump that included thousands of classified CIA documents, said to have been made public by an Edward Snowden-like figure. The documents included revelations about smart-TV malware that can record conversations, even when it appeared to owners that the TV was turned off.
Assange on CIA's 'act of devastating incompetence'
Assange called the CIA's creation of the cyber-weapons arsenal "an act of devastating incompetence." It has been noted that it is unknown exactly who has access to the viruses. A list of actors including those belonging to organized crime, and those acting on behalf of foreign states, has been suggested as possibilities.
The WikiLeaks founder found absurdity with the fact that the CIA created such programs in the first place, and that the agency stored all the code in one, unsecured location. Programs were said to have been "passed around" the U.S. intelligence community, "out of control."
The political dissident, who is currently granted asylum in Ecuador's embassy in London, United Kingdom, called the collection of trojans and viruses the largest ever assembled, and underlined evidence suggesting that the programs are being used to attack everyday users by an unknown number of operators. Julian Assange also held the CIA to task for their apparent covering up of the existence of the programs. He charged that the CIA became aware that it had "lost control" of the viruses over past few months, and that no public disclosure has taken place.
Who knew about CIA cyber-weapons program? When?
The infamous document leaker broached what he called an "interesting question" of which members of the U.S. government were aware of the existence of the viruses, and when. Julian Assange went so far as to question whether former President Barack Obama had knowledge of the secret CIA program, or if he attempted to cover it up, particularly during the election. Assange also asked if President Donald Trump was aware of the existence of the programs, and if he is, when he first learned of them, and why the federal government hasn't "acted with speed" together with technology firms like Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) to address the situation, including the apparent risk to consumers, and citizens alike.