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<h1 class="leak-title">Vault 7: CIA Hacking Tools Revealed</h1>
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<p>Today, Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks begins its new
series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
Code-named "Vault 7" by WikiLeaks, it is the largest
ever publication of confidential documents on the
agency.</p>
<p>The first full part of the series, "Year Zero",
comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated,
high-security network situated inside the CIA's <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/files/org-chart.png">Center
for Cyber Intelligence</a> in Langley, Virgina. It
follows an introductory disclosure last month of <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/cia-france-elections-2012"
target="_blank"> CIA targeting French political
parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012
presidential election</a>.</p>
<p>Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its
hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans,
weaponized "zero day" exploits, malware remote control
systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary
collection, which amounts to more than several hundred
million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire
hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have
been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and
contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has
provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.</p>
<p>"Year Zero" introduces the scope and direction of the
CIA's global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal
and dozens of "zero day" weaponized exploits against a
wide range of U.S. and European company products,
include Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's
Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into
covert microphones.</p>
<p>Since 2001 the CIA has gained political and budgetary
preeminence over the U.S. National Security Agency
(NSA). The CIA found itself building not just its now
infamous drone fleet, but a very different type of
covert, globe-spanning force — its own substantial fleet
of hackers. The agency's hacking division freed it from
having to disclose its often controversial operations to
the NSA (its primary bureaucratic rival) in order to
draw on the NSA's hacking capacities.</p>
<p>By the end of 2016, the CIA's hacking division, which
formally falls under the agency's <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/files/org-chart.png">Center
for Cyber Intelligence</a> (CCI), had over 5000
registered users and had produced more than a thousand
hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and other
"weaponized" malware. Such is the scale of the CIA's
undertaking that by 2016, its hackers had utilized more
code than that used to run Facebook. The CIA had
created, in effect, its "own NSA" with even less
accountability and without publicly answering the
question as to whether such a massive budgetary spend on
duplicating the capacities of a rival agency could be
justified.</p>
<p>In a statement to WikiLeaks the source details policy
questions that they say urgently need to be debated in
public, including whether the CIA's hacking capabilities
exceed its mandated powers and the problem of public
oversight of the agency. The source wishes to initiate a
public debate about the security, creation, use,
proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons.</p>
<p>Once a single cyber 'weapon' is 'loose' it can spread
around the world in seconds, to be used by rival states,
cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike.</p>
<p>Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor stated that "There is
an extreme proliferation risk in the development of
cyber 'weapons'. Comparisons can be drawn between the
uncontrolled proliferation of such 'weapons', which
results from the inability to contain them combined with
their high market value, and the global arms trade. But
the significance of "Year Zero" goes well beyond the
choice between cyberwar and cyberpeace. The disclosure
is also exceptional from a political, legal and forensic
perspective."</p>
<p>Wikileaks has carefully reviewed the "Year Zero"
disclosure and published substantive CIA documentation
while avoiding the distribution of 'armed' cyberweapons
until a consensus emerges on the technical and political
nature of the CIA's program and how such 'weapons'
should analyzed, disarmed and published. </p>
<p>Wikileaks has also decided to <a
href="about:reader?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwikileaks.org%2Fciav7p1%2F#REDACT">redact</a>
and anonymise some identifying information in "Year
Zero" for in depth analysis. These redactions include
ten of thousands of CIA targets and attack machines
throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States.
While we are aware of the imperfect results of any
approach chosen, we remain committed to our publishing
model and note that the quantity of published pages in
"Vault 7" part one (“Year Zero”) already eclipses the
total number of pages published over the first three
years of the Edward Snowden NSA leaks.</p>
<a id="ANALYSIS" name="ANALYSIS"></a>
<h3>CIA malware targets iPhone, Android, smart TVs</h3>
<p>CIA malware and hacking tools are built by EDG
(Engineering Development Group), a software development
group within CCI (Center for Cyber Intelligence), a
department belonging to the CIA's DDI (Directorate for
Digital Innovation). The DDI is one of the five major
directorates of the CIA (see this <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/files/org-chart.png">
organizational chart</a> of the CIA for more details).</p>
<p>The EDG is responsible for the development, testing and
operational support of all backdoors, exploits,
malicious payloads, trojans, viruses and any other kind
of malware used by the CIA in its covert operations
world-wide.</p>
<p>The increasing sophistication of surveillance
techniques has drawn comparisons with George Orwell's
1984, but "Weeping Angel", developed by the CIA's <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/space_753667.html">Embedded
Devices Branch (EDB)</a>, which infests smart TVs,
transforming them into covert microphones, is surely its
most emblematic realization.</p>
<p>The attack against <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_12353643.html">Samsung
smart TVs</a> was developed in cooperation with the
United Kingdom's MI5/BTSS. After infestation, Weeping
Angel places the target TV in a 'Fake-Off' mode, so that
the owner falsely believes the TV is off when it is on.
In 'Fake-Off' mode the TV operates as a bug, recording
conversations in the room and sending them over the
Internet to a covert CIA server. </p>
<p>As of October 2014 the CIA was also looking at <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_13763790.html">
infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern
cars and trucks</a>. The purpose of such control is
not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in
nearly undetectable assassinations. </p>
<p>The CIA's Mobile Devices Branch (MDB) developed <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/space_3276804.html">
numerous attacks to remotely hack and control popular
smart phones</a>. Infected phones can be instructed to
send the CIA the user's geolocation, audio and text
communications as well as covertly activate the phone's
camera and microphone.</p>
<p>Despite iPhone's minority share (14.5%) of the global
smart phone market in 2016, a specialized unit in the
CIA's Mobile Development Branch produces malware to
infest, control and exfiltrate data from <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/space_2359301.html">iPhones
and other Apple products running iOS, such as iPads</a>.
CIA's arsenal includes <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_13205587.html">numerous
local and remote "zero days"</a> developed by CIA or
obtained from GCHQ, NSA, FBI or purchased from cyber
arms contractors such as Baitshop. The disproportionate
focus on iOS may be explained by the popularity of the
iPhone among social, political, diplomatic and business
elites.</p>
<p>A <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/space_11763721.html">similar
unit targets Google's Android which is used to run the
majority of the world's smart phones (~85%) including
Samsung, HTC and Sony</a>. 1.15 billion Android
powered phones were sold last year. "Year Zero" shows
that as of 2016 <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_11629096.html">the
CIA had 24 "weaponized" Android "zero days"</a> which
it has developed itself and obtained from GCHQ, NSA and
cyber arms contractors.</p>
<p>These techniques permit the CIA to bypass the
encryption of WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Wiebo, Confide
and Cloackman by hacking the "smart" phones that they
run on and collecting audio and message traffic before
encryption is applied.</p>
<h3>CIA malware targets Windows, OSx, Linux, routers</h3>
<p>The CIA also runs a very substantial effort to infect
and control <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_11628612.html">Microsoft
Windows users</a> with its malware. This includes
multiple local and remote weaponized "zero days", air
gap jumping viruses such as <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_17072172.html">"Hammer
Drill"</a> which infects software distributed on
CD/DVDs, <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_13762636.html">
infectors for removable media such as USBs</a>,
systems to <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_13763247.html">
hide data in images</a> or in covert disk areas (<a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_13763236.html">
"Brutal Kangaroo"</a>) and to <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_13763650.html">keep
its malware infestations going</a>.</p>
<p>Many of these infection efforts are pulled together by
the CIA's <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/space_3276805.html">Automated
Implant Branch (AIB)</a>, which has developed several
attack systems for automated infestation and control of
CIA malware, such as "Assassin" and "Medusa".</p>
<p>Attacks against Internet infrastructure and webservers
are developed by the CIA's <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/space_15204355.html">Network
Devices Branch (NDB)</a>.</p>
<p>The CIA has developed automated multi-platform malware
attack and control systems covering Windows, Mac OS X,
Solaris, Linux and more, such as EDB's "HIVE" and the
related "Cutthroat" and "Swindle" tools, which are <a
href="about:reader?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwikileaks.org%2Fciav7p1%2F#HIVE">described
in the examples section below</a>.</p>
<h3>CIA 'hoarded' vulnerabilities ("zero days")</h3>
<p>In the wake of Edward Snowden's leaks about the NSA,
the U.S. technology industry secured a commitment from
the Obama administration that the executive would
disclose on an ongoing basis — rather than hoard —
serious vulnerabilities, exploits, bugs or "zero days"
to Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other US-based
manufacturers.</p>
<p>Serious vulnerabilities not disclosed to the
manufacturers places huge swathes of the population and
critical infrastructure at risk to foreign intelligence
or cyber criminals who independently discover or hear
rumors of the vulnerability. If the CIA can discover
such vulnerabilities so can others.</p>
<p>The U.S. government's commitment to the <a
href="https://is.gd/vepvep" target="_blank">
Vulnerabilities Equities Process</a> came after
significant lobbying by US technology companies, who
risk losing their share of the global market over real
and perceived hidden vulnerabilities. The government
stated that it would disclose all pervasive
vulnerabilities discovered after 2010 on an ongoing
basis.</p>
<p>"Year Zero" documents show that the CIA breached the
Obama administration's commitments. Many of the
vulnerabilities used in the CIA's cyber arsenal are
pervasive and some may already have been found by rival
intelligence agencies or cyber criminals.</p>
<p>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. 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.</p>
<p>The same vulnerabilities exist for the population at
large, including the U.S. Cabinet, Congress, top CEOs,
system administrators, security officers and engineers.
By hiding these security flaws from manufacturers like
Apple and Google the CIA ensures that it can hack
everyone &mdsh; at the expense of leaving everyone
hackable.</p>
<h3>'Cyberwar' programs are a serious proliferation risk</h3>
<p>Cyber 'weapons' are not possible to keep under
effective control.</p>
<p>While nuclear proliferation has been restrained by the
enormous costs and visible infrastructure involved in
assembling enough fissile material to produce a critical
nuclear mass, cyber 'weapons', once developed, are very
hard to retain.</p>
<p>Cyber 'weapons' are in fact just computer programs
which can be pirated like any other. Since they are
entirely comprised of information they can be copied
quickly with no marginal cost.</p>
<p>Securing such 'weapons' is particularly difficult since
the same people who develop and use them have the skills
to exfiltrate copies without leaving traces — sometimes
by using the very same 'weapons' against the
organizations that contain them. There are substantial
price incentives for government hackers and consultants
to obtain copies since there is a global "vulnerability
market" that will pay hundreds of thousands to millions
of dollars for copies of such 'weapons'. Similarly,
contractors and companies who obtain such 'weapons'
sometimes use them for their own purposes, obtaining
advantage over their competitors in selling 'hacking'
services.</p>
<p>Over the last three years the United States
intelligence sector, which consists of government
agencies such as the CIA and NSA and their contractors,
such as Booz Allan Hamilton, has been subject to
unprecedented series of data exfiltrations by its own
workers.</p>
<p>A number of intelligence community members not yet
publicly named have been arrested or subject to federal
criminal investigations in separate incidents.</p>
<p>Most visibly, on February 8, 2017 a U.S. federal grand
jury indicted Harold T. Martin III with 20 counts of
mishandling classified information. The Department of
Justice alleged that it seized some 50,000 gigabytes of
information from Harold T. Martin III that he had
obtained from classified programs at NSA and CIA,
including the source code for numerous hacking tools.</p>
<p>Once a single cyber 'weapon' is 'loose' it can spread
around the world in seconds, to be used by peer states,
cyber mafia and teenage hackers alike.</p>
<h3>U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt is a covert CIA hacker
base</h3>
<p>In addition to its operations in Langley, Virginia the
CIA also uses the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt as a
covert base for its hackers covering Europe, the Middle
East and Africa.</p>
<p>CIA hackers operating out of the Frankfurt consulate (<a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_20251151.html"> "Center for
Cyber Intelligence Europe"</a> or CCIE) are given
diplomatic ("black") passports and State Department
cover. <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_26607630.html">
The instructions for incoming CIA hackers</a> make
Germany's counter-intelligence efforts appear
inconsequential: "Breeze through German Customs because
you have your cover-for-action story down pat, and all
they did was stamp your passport"</p>
<p> <i>Your Cover Story (for this trip)</i><br>
<b>Q:</b> Why are you here?<br>
<b>A:</b> Supporting technical consultations at the
Consulate. </p>
<p>Two earlier WikiLeaks publications give further detail
on CIA approaches to <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/cia-travel/"
target="_blank">customs</a> and <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/cia-travel/"
target="_blank">secondary screening procedures</a>.</p>
<p>Once in Frankfurt CIA hackers can travel without
further border checks to the 25 European countries that
are part of the Shengen open border area — including
France, Italy and Switzerland.</p>
<p>A number of the CIA's electronic attack methods are
designed for physical proximity. These attack methods
are able to penetrate high security networks that are
disconnected from the internet, such as police record
database. In these cases, a CIA officer, agent or allied
intelligence officer acting under instructions,
physically infiltrates the targeted workplace. The
attacker is provided with a USB containing malware
developed for the CIA for this purpose, which is
inserted into the targeted computer. The attacker then
infects and exfiltrates data to removable media. For
example, the CIA attack system <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_20251107.html">Fine
Dining</a>, provides 24 decoy applications for CIA
spies to use. To witnesses, the spy appears to be
running a program showing videos (e.g VLC), presenting
slides (Prezi), playing a computer game (Breakout2,
2048) or even running a fake virus scanner (Kaspersky,
McAfee, Sophos). But while the decoy application is on
the screen, the underlaying system is automatically
infected and ransacked.</p>
<h3>How the CIA dramatically increased proliferation risks</h3>
<p>In what is surely one of the most astounding
intelligence own goals in living memory, the CIA
structured its classification regime such that for the
most market valuable part of "Vault 7" — the CIA's
weaponized malware (implants + zero days), Listening
Posts (LP), and Command and Control (C2) systems — the
agency has little legal recourse.</p>
<p>The CIA made these systems unclassified.</p>
<p>Why the CIA chose to make its cyberarsenal unclassified
reveals how concepts developed for military use do not
easily crossover to the 'battlefield' of cyber 'war'.</p>
<p>To attack its targets, the CIA usually requires that
its implants communicate with their control programs
over the internet. If CIA implants, Command &
Control and Listening Post software were classified,
then CIA officers could be prosecuted or dismissed for
violating rules that prohibit placing classified
information onto the Internet. Consequently the CIA has
secretly made most of its cyber spying/war code
unclassified. The U.S. government is not able to assert
copyright either, due to restrictions in the U.S.
Constitution. This means that cyber 'arms' manufactures
and computer hackers can freely "pirate" these 'weapons'
if they are obtained. The CIA has primarily had to rely
on obfuscation to protect its malware secrets.</p>
<p>Conventional weapons such as missiles may be fired at
the enemy (i.e into an unsecured area). Proximity to or
impact with the target detonates the ordnance including
its classified parts. Hence military personnel do not
violate classification rules by firing ordnance with
classified parts. Ordnance will likely explode. If it
does not, that is not the operator's intent.</p>
<p>Over the last decade U.S. hacking operations have been
increasingly dressed up in military jargon to tap into
Department of Defense funding streams. For instance,
attempted "malware injections" (commercial jargon) or
"implant drops" (NSA jargon) are being called "fires" as
if a weapon was being fired. However the analogy is
questionable.</p>
<p>Unlike bullets, bombs or missiles, most CIA malware is
designed to live for days or even years after it has
reached its 'target'. CIA malware does not "explode on
impact" but rather permanently infests its target. In
order to infect target's device, copies of the malware
must be placed on the target's devices, giving physical
possession of the malware to the target. To exfiltrate
data back to the CIA or to await further instructions
the malware must communicate with CIA Command &
Control (C2) systems placed on internet connected
servers. But such servers are typically not approved to
hold classified information, so CIA command and control
systems are also made unclassified.</p>
<p>A successful 'attack' on a target's computer system is
more like a series of complex stock maneuvers in a
hostile take-over bid or the careful planting of rumors
in order to gain control over an organization's
leadership rather than the firing of a weapons system.
If there is a military analogy to be made, the
infestation of a target is perhaps akin to the execution
of a whole series of military maneuvers against the
target's territory including observation, infiltration,
occupation and exploitation.</p>
<h3>Evading forensics and anti-virus</h3>
<p>A series of standards lay out CIA malware infestation
patterns which are likely to assist forensic crime scene
investigators as well as Apple, Microsoft, Google,
Samsung, Nokia, Blackberry, Siemens and anti-virus
companies attribute and defend against attacks.</p>
<a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_14587109.html">"Tradecraft
DO's and DON'Ts"</a>
<p style="display: inline;" class="readability-styled">
contains CIA rules on how its malware should be written
to avoid fingerprints implicating the "CIA, US
government, or its witting partner companies" in
"forensic review". Similar secret standards cover the </p>
<a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/files/NOD%20Cryptographic%20Requirements%20v1.1%20TOP%20SECRET.pdf">
use of encryption to hide CIA hacker and malware
communication</a>
<p style="display: inline;" class="readability-styled">
(pdf), </p>
<a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/files/Codex-Spec-v1-SECRET.pdf">describing
targets & exfiltrated data</a>
<p style="display: inline;" class="readability-styled">
(pdf) as well as </p>
<a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/files/ICE-Spec-v3-final-SECRET.pdf">
executing payloads</a>
<p style="display: inline;" class="readability-styled">
(pdf) and </p>
<a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/files/Persisted-DLL-Spec-v2-SECRET.pdf">
persisting</a>
<p style="display: inline;" class="readability-styled">
(pdf) in the target's machines over time.</p>
<p>CIA hackers developed successful attacks against most
well known anti-virus programs. These are documented in
<a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_2064514.html">AV
defeats</a>, <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_13762910.html">Personal
Security Products</a>, <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_7995642.html">Detecting
and defeating PSPs</a> and <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_2621845.html">PSP/Debugger/RE
Avoidance</a>. For example, Comodo was defeated by <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_5341269.html">CIA malware
placing itself in the Window's "Recycle Bin"</a>.
While Comodo 6.x has a <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_5341272.html">"Gaping
Hole of DOOM"</a>.</p>
<p>CIA hackers discussed what the NSA's "Equation Group"
hackers did wrong and <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_14588809.html">how
the CIA's malware makers could avoid similar exposure</a>.</p>
<a id="EXAMPLES" name="EXAMPLES"></a>
<p>The CIA's Engineering Development Group (EDG)
management system contains around 500 different projects
(only some of which are documented by "Year Zero") each
with their own sub-projects, malware and hacker tools.</p>
<p>The majority of these projects relate to tools that are
used for penetration, infestation ("implanting"),
control, and exfiltration.</p>
<p>Another branch of development focuses on the
development and operation of Listening Posts (LP) and
Command and Control (C2) systems used to communicate
with and control CIA implants; special projects are used
to target specific hardware from routers to smart TVs.</p>
<p>Some example projects are described below, but see <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/index.html">
the table of contents</a> for the full list of
projects described by WikiLeaks' "Year Zero".</p>
<h3>UMBRAGE</h3>
<p>The CIA's hand crafted hacking techniques pose a
problem for the agency. Each technique it has created
forms a "fingerprint" that can be used by forensic
investigators to attribute multiple different attacks to
the same entity.</p>
<p>This is analogous to finding the same distinctive knife
wound on multiple separate murder victims. The unique
wounding style creates suspicion that a single murderer
is responsible. As soon one murder in the set is solved
then the other murders also find likely attribution.</p>
<p>The CIA's <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/space_753668.html">Remote
Devices Branch</a>'s <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_2621751.html">UMBRAGE
group</a> collects and maintains <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_2621753.html">a
substantial library</a> of attack techniques 'stolen'
from malware produced in other states including the
Russian Federation.</p>
<p>With UMBRAGE and related projects the CIA cannot only
increase its total number of attack types but also
misdirect attribution by leaving behind the
"fingerprints" of the groups that the attack techniques
were stolen from.</p>
<p>UMBRAGE components cover keyloggers, password
collection, webcam capture, data destruction,
persistence, privilege escalation, stealth, anti-virus
(PSP) avoidance and survey techniques.</p>
<h3>Fine Dining</h3>
<p>Fine Dining comes with a standardized questionnaire i.e
menu that CIA case officers fill out. The questionnaire
is used by the agency's OSB (<a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/space_1736706.html">Operational
Support Branch</a>) to transform the requests of case
officers into technical requirements for hacking attacks
(typically "exfiltrating" information from computer
systems) for specific operations. The questionnaire
allows the OSB to identify how to adapt existing tools
for the operation, and communicate this to CIA malware
configuration staff. The OSB functions as the interface
between CIA operational staff and the relevant technical
support staff.</p>
<p>Among the list of possible targets of the collection
are 'Asset', 'Liason Asset', 'System Administrator',
'Foreign Information Operations', 'Foreign Intelligence
Agencies' and 'Foreign Government Entities'. Notably
absent is any reference to extremists or transnational
criminals. The 'Case Officer' is also asked to specify
the environment of the target like the type of computer,
operating system used, Internet connectivity and
installed anti-virus utilities (PSPs) as well as a list
of file types to be exfiltrated like Office documents,
audio, video, images or custom file types. The 'menu'
also asks for information if recurring access to the
target is possible and how long unobserved access to the
computer can be maintained. This information is used by
the CIA's 'JQJIMPROVISE' software (see below) to
configure a set of CIA malware suited to the specific
needs of an operation.</p>
<h3>Improvise (JQJIMPROVISE)</h3>
<p>'Improvise' is a toolset for configuration,
post-processing, payload setup and execution vector
selection for survey/exfiltration tools supporting all
major operating systems like Windows (Bartender), MacOS
(JukeBox) and Linux (DanceFloor). Its configuration
utilities like Margarita allows the NOC (Network
Operation Center) to customize tools based on
requirements from 'Fine Dining' questionairies.</p>
<a id="HIVE" name="HIVE">
<h3>HIVE</h3>
</a>
<p>HIVE is a multi-platform CIA malware suite and its
associated control software. The project provides
customizable implants for Windows, Solaris, MikroTik
(used in internet routers) and Linux platforms and a
Listening Post (LP)/Command and Control (C2)
infrastructure to communicate with these implants.</p>
<p>The implants are configured to communicate via HTTPS
with the webserver of a cover domain; each operation
utilizing these implants has a separate cover domain and
the infrastructure can handle any number of cover
domains.</p>
<p>Each cover domain resolves to an IP address that is
located at a commercial VPS (Virtual Private Server)
provider. The public-facing server forwards all incoming
traffic via a VPN to a 'Blot' server that handles actual
connection requests from clients. It is setup for
optional SSL client authentication: if a client sends a
valid client certificate (only implants can do that),
the connection is forwarded to the 'Honeycomb'
toolserver that communicates with the implant; if a
valid certificate is missing (which is the case if
someone tries to open the cover domain website by
accident), the traffic is forwarded to a cover server
that delivers an unsuspicious looking website.</p>
<p>The Honeycomb toolserver receives exfiltrated
information from the implant; an operator can also task
the implant to execute jobs on the target computer, so
the toolserver acts as a C2 (command and control) server
for the implant.</p>
<p>Similar functionality (though limited to Windows) is
provided by the RickBobby project.</p>
<p style="display: inline;" class="readability-styled">
See the classified </p>
<a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/files/UsersGuide.pdf">user</a>
<p style="display: inline;" class="readability-styled">
and </p>
<a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/files/DevelopersGuide.pdf">developer</a>
<p style="display: inline;" class="readability-styled">
guides for HIVE.</p>
<a id="FAQ" name="FAQ"></a>
<h3>Why now?</h3>
<p>WikiLeaks published as soon as its verification and
analysis were ready.</p>
<p>In Febuary the Trump administration has issued an
Executive Order calling for a "Cyberwar" review to be
prepared within 30 days.</p>
<p>While the review increases the timeliness and relevance
of the publication it did not play a role in setting the
publication date.</p>
<a id="REDACT" name="REDACT">
<h3>Redactions</h3>
</a>
<p>Names, email addresses and external IP addresses have
been redacted in the released pages (70,875 redactions
in total) until further analysis is complete.</p>
<ol>
<li><b>Over-redaction:</b> Some items may have been
redacted that are not employees, contractors, targets
or otherwise related to the agency, but are, for
example, authors of documentation for otherwise public
projects that are used by the agency.</li>
<li><b>Identity vs. person:</b> the redacted names are
replaced by user IDs (numbers) to allow readers to
assign multiple pages to a single author. Given the
redaction process used a single person may be
represented by more than one assigned identifier but
no identifier refers to more than one real person.</li>
<li><b>Archive attachments (zip, tar.gz, ...)</b> are
replaced with a PDF listing all the file names in the
archive. As the archive content is assessed it may be
made available; until then the archive is redacted.</li>
<li><b>Attachments with other binary content</b> are
replaced by a hex dump of the content to prevent
accidental invocation of binaries that may have been
infected with weaponized CIA malware. As the content
is assessed it may be made available; until then the
content is redacted.</li>
<li>The <b>tens of thousands of routable IP addresses
references</b> (including more than 22 thousand
within the United States) that correspond to possible
targets, CIA covert listening post servers,
intermediary and test systems, are redacted for
further exclusive investigation.</li>
<li><b>Binary files of non-public origin</b> are only
available as dumps to prevent accidental invocation of
CIA malware infected binaries.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Organizational Chart</h3>
<p>The <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/files/org-chart.png">organizational
chart</a> corresponds to the material published by
WikiLeaks so far.</p>
<p>Since the organizational structure of the CIA below the
level of Directorates is not public, the placement of
the EDG and its branches within the org chart of the
agency is reconstructed from information contained in
the documents released so far. It is intended to be used
as a rough outline of the internal organization; please
be aware that the reconstructed org chart is incomplete
and that internal reorganizations occur frequently.</p>
<h3>Wiki pages</h3>
<p>"Year Zero" contains 7818 web pages with 943
attachments from the internal development groupware. The
software used for this purpose is called Confluence, a
proprietary software from Atlassian. Webpages in this
system (like in Wikipedia) have a version history that
can provide interesting insights on how a document
evolved over time; the 7818 documents include these page
histories for 1136 latest versions.</p>
<p>The order of named pages within each level is
determined by date (oldest first). Page content is not
present if it was originally dynamically created by the
Confluence software (as indicated on the re-constructed
page).</p>
<h3>What time period is covered?</h3>
<p>The years 2013 to 2016. The sort order of the pages
within each level is determined by date (oldest first).</p>
<p>WikiLeaks has obtained the CIA's creation/last
modification date for each page but these do not yet
appear for technical reasons. Usually the date can be
discerned or approximated from the content and the page
order. If it is critical to know the exact time/date
contact WikiLeaks.</p>
<h3>What is "Vault 7"</h3>
<p>"Vault 7" is a substantial collection of material about
CIA activities obtained by WikiLeaks.</p>
<h3>When was each part of "Vault 7" obtained?</h3>
<p>Part one was obtained recently and covers through 2016.
Details on the other parts will be available at the time
of publication.</p>
<h3>Is each part of "Vault 7" from a different source?</h3>
<p>Details on the other parts will be available at the
time of publication.</p>
<h3>What is the total size of "Vault 7"?</h3>
<p>The series is the largest intelligence publication in
history.</p>
<h3>How did WikiLeaks obtain each part of "Vault 7"?</h3>
<p>Sources trust WikiLeaks to not reveal information that
might help identify them.</p>
<h3>Isn't WikiLeaks worried that the CIA will act against
its staff to stop the series?</h3>
<p>No. That would be certainly counter-productive.</p>
<h3>Has WikiLeaks already 'mined' all the best stories?</h3>
<p>No. WikiLeaks has intentionally not written up hundreds
of impactful stories to encourage others to find them
and so create expertise in the area for subsequent parts
in the series. They're there. Look. Those who
demonstrate journalistic excellence may be considered
for early access to future parts.</p>
<h3>Won't other journalists find all the best stories
before me?</h3>
<p>Unlikely. There are very considerably more stories than
there are journalists or academics who are in a position
to write them.</p>
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