By Aaron Kesel
WikiLeaks has released part 1 of its new Vault 8 series following its popular and widely distributed Vault 7 series which exposed CIA spyware and malware capabilities.
The new release “will enable investigative journalists, forensic experts, and the general public to better identify and understand covert CIA infrastructure components,” the international whistleblower coalition wrote.
The CIA’s master virus control system known as “Hive” was exposed previously last April by WikiLeaks.
RELEASE: Inside the top secret CIA virus control system HIVE https://t.co/Bs6LmsVALz pic.twitter.com/y79IVSukK0
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 14, 2017
“Described as a multi-platform malware suite, Hive provides “customisable implants” for Windows, Solaris, MikroTik (software used in Internet routers), Linux OS, and AVTech Network Video Recorders, used for CCTV recording.
A 2015 user guide for the malware suite reveals the initial release of Hive was in 2010. The guide goes on to describes the software as having two primary functions – a beacon and interactive shell. Both are designed to provide a starting point for CIA cyber agents to deploy other tools that have been included in the WikiLeaks Vault 7 series release.
The implants communicate via HTTPS with the web server using a cover domain. Each cover domain is connected to an IP address that is hooked into a Virtual Private Server (VPS) provider. This forwards all incoming traffic to a ‘Blot’ server.
The redirected traffic is then examined to see if it contains a valid beacon. If it does, it’s sent to a tool handler, called a “Honeycomb.”
The CIA can then choose to initiate other actions on the targeted computer.
The user guide further details the commands that are available, including uploading and deleting files and executing applications on the computer.
“Source code published in this series contains software designed to run on servers controlled by the CIA. Like WikiLeaks’ earlier Vault7 series,” WikiLeaks wrote in a press release for the new Vault 8 series.
The release of Hive followed with wide-scale blowback against the CIA when security firm Symantec linked the agency and a hacking group Longhorn to 40 targets in 16 countries with many more expected to come. Longhorn has been active since at least 2011, according to Symantec, infiltrating targets in the financial, telecom, aerospace and natural resources industries. It has the markings of an intelligence-backed state attacker.
“The tools used by Longhorn closely follow development timelines and technical specifications laid out in documents disclosed by WikiLeaks,” a Symantec statement said.
The Longhorn group shares some of the same cryptographic protocols specified in the Vault 7 documents, in addition to following leaked guidelines on tacts to avoid detection. Given the close similarities between the tools and techniques, there can be little doubt that Longhorn’s activities and the Vault 7 documents are the work of the same group.
The latest leak is the CIA’s master infrastructure source code + logs for that malware control system created by its Embedded Development Branch (EDB.) and expands on the use of obfuscated spoofed tools to implicate another party in a cyber attack.
In March, WikiLeaks also released 676 files code-named ‘Marble’, which detailed CIA hacking techniques and how they can misdirect forensic investigators from attributing viruses, trojans and worms to their agency by using the source code of other languages as a scapegoat – in other words, false flag cyber attacks.
CIA’s “Marble Framework” shows its hackers use potential decoy languages https://t.co/Hm3pTPSXIS
Background: https://t.co/GsoN4BuyTz pic.twitter.com/ZT66doCnfY
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 31, 2017
This latest release exposes that the CIA wrote code “to impersonate Russia’s Kaspersky Lab anti-virus company.”
New WikiLeaks publication reveals CIA wrote code to impersonate Kaspersky Labs anti-virus company https://t.co/EvE8GdyAmM pic.twitter.com/geigDgIDsk
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 9, 2017
“If the target organization looks at the network traffic coming out of its network, it is likely to misattribute the CIA exfiltration of data to uninvolved entities whose identities have been impersonated,” WikiLeaks said in a statement.
In July, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ordered all government agencies to stop using Kaspersky-related security products and remove them from computers, citing “information security risks presented by the use of Kaspersky products on federal information systems.”
It’s worth noting that Kaspersky was named in the infamous Trump dossier compiled by Fusion GPS under the behest of former spook Christopher Steele. The same firm that was coincidentally connected to a Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya who set up a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., through Rob Goldstone, a music publicist and personal friend of Trump Jr.
Then there is the fact that Hillary Clinton herself approved the dossier and helped fund it along with the DNC and RNC, according to journalist Edward Klein.
“Hillary approved Podesta’s decision to pay for the dossier by funneling campaign funds through Marc Elias,” the strategist said, referring to the lawyer who represented both the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
“The dossier was delivered to the Clinton campaign by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS in the summer of 2016, and Hillary read it and was thrilled by its salacious content,” the strategist continued.
She bragged about it so openly that many of the people in her Brooklyn campaign headquarters were aware of the existence of the dossier. Hillary referred to it as her ‘secret weapon’ that would ‘blow Trump out of the water.’
Former DNC interim head, Donna Brazile, even stated on The View that she knew about the dossier before the presidential election. “I asked one question on November 4th and I was told that I did not need to know and so no, I did not know,” Brazile said.
Is all the propaganda and setups of U.S. president Donald Trump to paint him as colluding with Russia finally falling apart? WikiLeaks seems to play a major part in the destruction of the narrative that alludes to have heavy CIA involvement since the effort is so sophisticated and vast that indicates it was a potential clandestine operation. At some point, people have to start questioning the breadth of coincidences and realize as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said: “In politics, there are no accidents,” None Dare Call it Conspiracy, by Gary Allen and Larry Abraham.
Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Steemit, and BitChute. Ready for solutions? Subscribe to our premium newsletter Counter Markets.
Image Credit: Truthstream Media
Every agency in the USG will lie, cheat steal and murder – just to keep their ” Cash Cow Enemy ” – Russia.
there is a great interview with Richard d hall and Andrew Johnson on richplanet.net regards WikiLeaks and Assange it is well worth a watch
Spooks are the masters of lies. The problem here is that the CIA is going rogue. There is no rationale that I can think of, which would justify the US prime “intelligence” agency using its lies to politically assault a sitting president, none!
are they rogue?
yes if you judge them against the constitution.
but are they rogue, when judged against the government and its agendas? because so is BIG government unconstitutional
2018 – replace congress (both houses), kick out RINOs, kick out dems, replace with thinkers, who can (and will) stop funding to ALL alphabet agencies – and then prosecute anyone who refuses to cease and desist
when chronic warfare is halted, taxes can go back down, and there would be no need for the government to steal from paul to pay peter, who can then pay back paul, who owes freddie, who should never have been touched in the first place – in fact smaller government, where citizens are expected to be responsible for themselves, there would be no need for a freddie and any other similar programs / agendas
I agree with your beliefs but I cant see that ever happening. The whole concept of economic justice would be throw out with the bathwater. Just check the reality of today. The best countries are those that equally distribute the benefits of an expanding economy. The more money people have in their own pockets, the more they can support the economy. The happiest people are those that live in democratic, capitalist nations with a strong economic safety net. That includes 99 percent of Western nations with one huge exclusion!
“The more money people have in their own pockets, the more they can support the economy.” as long as that is voluntary i.e. charity, as opposed to taxes
taxes is redistribution of wealth from the rich, the poor, the worker, the person who earned to that great black hole named government, who distribute to the users
the users – this may include entitlement pensioners (while the people who actually did pay into a pension scheme end up indigent, because the scheme has been emptied out by criminals who work for, wait for it… government
the other users – those employed by government – either employed and paid a salary, and most of the time, their job? to see how much more revenue can be squeezed from the contributors – the wealthy or the poor, the workers – the general population, who pay their taxes because it is the LAW; or they are elected (and paid a stipend for their alleged sacrifice – pocket change beside the money that they get paid by “special interests”
the other users – military-industrial complex – a group whose only reason for being is to get as much of the tax dollar as possible, so that a) they can pay back the elected officials who vote “special interests”, b) supply lowest cost / lowest quality at highest price (oxymoron? YES) to end-users who hadn’t until then realised that they had a need for this new technology, and really, really and truly wish that they would supply best equipment, best quality (and as end-users, they couldn’t give a flying F%^& what the price was)
last point: all of those western nations are either NATO and/or EU, and wouldn’t know what democratic, capitalistic (strong economy) freedom and happiness is if it stood up and slapped them across the cheek
i am willing to bet some serious money, that the happiest people in the world are those half-dozen odd Brazilian tribes whose knowledge of the modern world is the HUGE silver birds that make so much noise when traversing the jungle – still never been found???
almost all other aboriginals (the Aborigines of Australia, the San bushmen of South Africa, even the Montagnards of Vietnam (South East Asia, and many other isolated until the mid-twentieth century tribes of Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Laos, Kampuchea, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia have suffered the indignity of meeting modern man, and the survivors live uncomfortable between the lines lives, no longer primitive, but neither fully-accepted amongst their non-peers
the aboriginals of north America have been imprisoned on reservations (for over a hundred years) and marginalised – poisoned with “whiskey”
Gone rogue. That’s so funny. The entire government has been rogue since 1789.