The American National Security Agency (NSA) can “intrude” into electronic computers even if they are not connected to the Internet, thanks to a system with electromagnetic waves, the New York Times newspaper claims in an article published in today's issue two days before the announcements that US President Barack Obama will make regarding the reform of surveillance programs.
According to the newspaper, which cites documents from the agency, officials and experts in the field of information technology, the NSA has installed on approximately 100,000 computers worldwide a software that allows it to spy on them but also to launch cyber attacks.
In most cases, this software was implanted into computers via their Internet connection. However, “more and more frequently the NSA resorts to a secret technology that allows it to infiltrate computers and destroy data even if they are not connected to the Internet”, the newspaper assures.
The technology, which has been used by the NSA “at least since 2008”, operates thanks to electromagnetic waves that “can be transmitted through small electronic circuits or via portable memories (USB) that are covertly installed on computers. Usually, the system that emits the electromagnetic waves must be placed in person, either by a spy, by its manufacturer, or by the computer's own user who is unaware of its existence.
The program, code-named Quantum, has been used against Russian military networks, systems used by the Mexican police and drug-trafficking cartels, European Union bodies involved in trade, as well as by certain countries cooperating with the US to combat terrorism. So far there is no evidence that the software or the radio-wave system has been used within the US, the newspaper notes. The cyber-attack against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2010, the so-called Stuxnet, is believed to have been the first test of this new technology.
“The action of the NSA focuses and develops especially on fundamental foreign targets and only on those”, commented the agency's spokesperson, Vani Vains, in her announcement, further reminding that the use of the tools at her disposal is done while respecting “the law, the regulations, the policy, the procedures, the technological constraints and the ethics”.
“The ongoing publication of the techniques and tools used by the NSA undermines the security of the US and our allies”, concluded the spokesperson.
Source: planet-greece.blogspot.com
