The New Frontier of IT Espionage

All info below is nothing new, every person with a minimum common sense and some basic IT knowledge has always had doubts it was happening, nonetheless the general  public does not seem to have come to terms with the severity of this issue. 

Even after Snowden leaks ; the general public is still naively posting their full lives on line regardless of any privacy consideration.

Social media does not seem affected or under scrutiny, no major drop in internet traffic is recorded, no sign of confidence loss on behalf of their users and no investigations at all on behalf of the authorities (no surprise there though!).

So if NSA and GCHQ eavesdropping on your life does not scare you what about the following:

If you are near your smart phone – the NSA or private parties could remotely activate your microphone and camera and spy on you.


The New York Times reported in 2011 that German police were using spyware to turn on the webcam and microphone on peoples’ computers:

A group that calls itself the Chaos Computer Club prompted a public outcry here recently when it discovered that German state investigators were using spying software capable of turning a computer’s webcam and microphone into a sophisticated surveillance device.

The club …announced last Saturday it had analyzed the hard drives of people who had been investigated and discovered that they were infected with a Trojan horse program that gave the police the ability to log keystrokes, capture screenshots and activate cameras and microphones.

Reuters documented last year that the U.S. and Israeli governments can remotely turn on a computer’s microphone:

Evidence suggest that the virus, dubbed Flame, may have been built on behalf of the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran’s nuclear program in 2010 [i.e. the U.S. and Israel], according to Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber security software maker that took credit for discovering the infections.

Flame can gather data files, remotely change settings on computers, turn on PC microphones to record conversations, take screen shots and log instant messaging chats.

Kaspersky Lab said Flame and Stuxnet appear to infect machines by exploiting the same flaw in the Windows operating system and that both viruses employ a similar way of spreading. 

PC Magazine tech columnist John Dvorak writes:

From what we know the NSA has back door access into Apple, Microsoft, and Google. What kind of access we don’t know, but let us assume it is similar to what they did about 7 years ago to AT&T. They had a secret room at Fulsom St. in San Francisco and the AT&T engineers had no control and no access to a room full of NSA equipment that had direct access to everything AT&T could do.

Microsoft is the source of the operating system for Windows and Windows cell phones. Apple controls the OS for Macs, iPhones, and iPads. Google controls the Chrome OS, Chrome Browser, and Android cell phones. The companies regularly push operating system upgrades and security updates to users on a regular basis.

Imagine however that the NSA has access to these updates at the source and has the ability to alter these update in order to install some sort of spyware on your phone, tablet, or computer. The software could turn on your camera or microphone remotely, read all your private data, or erase everything and brick your phone or computer.