The CIA is able to bypass the encryption of a number of instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Wiebo, Confide and Cloackman. This is clear from a series of documents that WikiLeaks has released on Tuesday about an alleged covert CIA program, as part of a series of seven installments that it defined as “the largest leak of intelligence data in history.”
Specifically, and if this information is confirmed, the techniques that Wikileaks collects would allow the agency to avoid the encryption with which communications are usually protected in these applications.
And it does not do so by breaking that encryption, but by directly hacking the device. Thus, the alleged malware used by the agency can intervene in the message even before it is sent and encrypted.
What is unknown, at the moment, are the versions of Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS, Mac OS X and smart TV software and other operating systems, including Microsoft, that have been hacked.
“Documents show that iOS and Android were hacked. Much bigger problem,” Edward Snowden wrote on Twitter, confirming this way of operating by the CIA and calling it “a much bigger problem” than the encryption breach.