Archean
Posts: 5,650 +102
The NSA Actually Intercepted Packages to Put Backdoors in Electronics
The NSA revelations keep on coming, and if you're feeling desensitized to the whole thing it's time to refocus and get your game face on for 2014. Because **** continues to get real.
SPIEGEL published two pieces this morning about the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) division, aka premier hacking ninja squad. According to Snowden documents, TAO has a catalog of all the commercial equipment that carries NSA backdoors. And it's a who's who of a list. Storage products from Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung have backdoors in their firmware, firewalls from Juniper Networks have been compromised, plus networking equipment from Cisco and Huawei, and even unspecified products from Dell. TAO actually intercepts online orders of these and other electronics to bug them.
SPIEGEL notes that the documents do not provide any evidence that the manufacturers mentioned had any idea about this NSA activity. Every company spokesperson contacted by Spiegel reporters denied having any knowledge of the situation, though Dell officials said instead that the company "respects and complies with the laws of all countries in which it operates."
Okay I bought an WD HDD last year, I wonder, if its 'firmware' is compromised in any way
. Although, they'll be very disappointed to know contents of it anyway .
The NSA revelations keep on coming, and if you're feeling desensitized to the whole thing it's time to refocus and get your game face on for 2014. Because **** continues to get real.
SPIEGEL published two pieces this morning about the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) division, aka premier hacking ninja squad. According to Snowden documents, TAO has a catalog of all the commercial equipment that carries NSA backdoors. And it's a who's who of a list. Storage products from Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung have backdoors in their firmware, firewalls from Juniper Networks have been compromised, plus networking equipment from Cisco and Huawei, and even unspecified products from Dell. TAO actually intercepts online orders of these and other electronics to bug them.
SPIEGEL notes that the documents do not provide any evidence that the manufacturers mentioned had any idea about this NSA activity. Every company spokesperson contacted by Spiegel reporters denied having any knowledge of the situation, though Dell officials said instead that the company "respects and complies with the laws of all countries in which it operates."
Okay I bought an WD HDD last year, I wonder, if its 'firmware' is compromised in any way
. Although, they'll be very disappointed to know contents of it anyway .
