US President Donald Trump gave the CIA additional powers in 2018 to carry out cyberattacks around the world. Specifically, Yahoo News reported that the CIA used the new powers granted to it to execute at least a dozen operations around the world. The CIA was already authorized to conduct silent research and surveillance as well as collect data, but the new powers allow it to do even more. These include, among other things, actions that can prove destructive as well as data leaks , as a former US government official told Yahoo News. While the former official did not provide details about each operation, Yahoo News journalists believe that the new powers and the CIA’s modus operandi are connected to a series of hack-and-dump incidents that occurred mainly in 2019. Some of these incidents are as follows:
- Publication, on Telegram, of hacking tools (malware) by APT34, a hacking group linked to Iran.
- Leak of approximately 15 million credit card details from three Iranian banks linked to Iran's IRGC.
- Breach of two companies providing cyber and surveillance solutions for the Russian intelligence agency FSB, and sharing the data online through a hacktivist group called “Digital Revolution.”
- Doxing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence agents on Telegram, revealing their names, home addresses, phone numbers, and social media profiles.
According to Yahoo News, such operations would never have been authorized by previous administrations , which have always been very cautious when attacking foreign adversaries, fearing backlash. However, in 2018, Trump “escaped” from the established White House stance on this issue and signed a document called a “Presidential finding”, giving the CIA the ability to plan and execute covert cyberattacks at its discretion and not under the supervision of the National Security (NSC).
However, Trump’s decision has divided senior US officials. On the one hand, some officials feared that the decision would have negative repercussions and would trigger reactions from foreign adversaries. On the other hand, some expressed concern about the lack of oversight of the NSC. NSC oversight has, in the past, put agencies , such as the CIA, under scrutiny when they orchestrated and approved cyberattacks on foreign soil, ensuring that agencies such as the CIA and the NSA went through due process that would once have taken years from planning to execution. There were also intelligence officials who were particularly receptive and “enthusiastic” about Trump’s decision, describing it as a “necessary reform” to make the CIA more agile and speed up response times to foreign attacks.
Finally, regarding the countries in which the CIA cyberattacks took place, these are under review, however former US officials stated that the document mentions Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as targets, among others, but the actual number of countries is estimated to be higher.
