The U.S. intelligence community is capable of compromising Android and Apple mobile devices, WikiLeaks warned Tuesday, specifically including smartphones used by sitting presidents in addition to most of the modern world.
WikiLeaks on Tuesday released what it described as thousands of documents obtained from the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence, the agency’s elite hacking division, including previously unpublished details involving its alleged arsenal of cyberweapons and other powerful computer exploits.
The “Year Zero” documents include details concerning the agency’s ability to compromise Apple and Android devices alike, WikiLeaks said, in turn affecting operating systems that power the vast majority of the world’s smartphones — including handsets regularly used to broadcast messages from President Trump’s widely followed Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump.
“As an example, specific CIA malware revealed in ’Year Zero’ is able to penetrate, infest and control both the Android phone and iPhone software that runs or has run presidential Twitter accounts,” WikiLeaks said in a press release.
“The CIA attacks this software by using undisclosed security vulnerabilities (’zero days’) possessed by the CIA but if the CIA can hack these phones then so can everyone else who has obtained or discovered the vulnerability. As long as the CIA keeps these vulnerabilities concealed from Apple and Google (who make the phones) they will not be fixed, and the phones will remain hackable,” the statement said.
While the leaked CIA documents don’t appear to name Mr. Trump, the dump further highlights the real risks brought on by the commander-in-chief’s frequent early morning tweet storms.
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Security researchers have warned for weeks now of the possible repercussions that could result from Mr. Trump’s reported use of an unsecured, consumer-grade Android device while in the White House, the likes of which could be potentially compromised by hackers and exfiltrated for data or turned into a monitoring device.
“This behavior is more than bad operational security — it is an egregious affront to national security,” more than a dozen congressional Democrats wrote last month in a letter to leaders of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
In 2013, hackers gained access to a Twitter account used by The Associated Press and falsely tweeted to millions of social media users that then-President Barack Obama was injured by an explosion at the White House. That tweet briefly erased around $136 billion in equity market value from the Dow Jone Industrial Average before it rebounded moments later.
Twitter data indicates that Mr. Trump tweeted six times on Tuesday morning from an Android device. His predecessor, Mr. Obama, previously claimed he used a smartphone that had been stripped of most of its features while he was in office.
According to WikiLeaks, the CIA has indeed stockpiled dozens of iOS and Android “zero days” designed specifically to compromise Apple- and Google- made smartphones. Research firm Gartner reported last month that Android and iOS devices accounted for 99.6 percent of all smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2016.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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