New classified NSA documents leaked by Snowden show the two secret intelligence agencies (GCHQ from the UK and NSA from the US) trying to find weak points in security products in order to do their work unnoticed.
The files, published last night by The Intercept, focus primarily on the challenges faced by the British intelligence agency GCHQ in its attempts to exploit computer networks on targets protected by Kaspersky products.
To overcome these problems, GCHQ applied on 13 June 2008 for a renewal of a warrant that would allow them to software reverse engineer (SRE) commercial security products to find ways to circumvent detection by spyware. For those who didn't understand, they applied for a warrant to "crack" Kaspersky products. These warrants are valid for a period of six months.
“Personal security products, such as the Russian anti-virus software Kaspersky, continue to challenge the capabilities of GCHQ’s CNE [Computer Network Exploitation] and SRE departments and are essential to our ability to exploit the software to prevent detection of our activities,” the warrant renewal application states.
Kaspersky was the only vendor mentioned by the intelligence agency, but their list contains products from 23 other companies, including: Bitdefender, AVG, F-Secure, Dr Web, Avira, Arcabit, ESET, Emsisoft, Avast, and Checkpoint.
This tactic allowed NSA and GCHQ not only to know the detection capabilities of security tools, but also to redirect them with malware or even to monitor their targets through them.
Cisco was also one of the companies mentioned in the warrant as the intelligence agencies sought permission to hack the company's routers.
Recall that recently, Kaspersky revealed a very complex attack against its networks, and as the company stated, there was a government behind it.
At a press conference in London, Eugene Kaspersky, the company's CEO, did not name the government but released several interesting facts.
