Andre Yoskowitz
29 Dec 2013 20:27
According to a new Der Spiegel report, the NSA's elite hacking unit (TAO), in collaboration with the CIA and FBI, intercept deliveries of laptops and other computer accessories in order to implant spyware, keyloggers and other hardware bugs.
The TAO can divert deliveries to "secret workshops" through a method called interdiction, where the devices are then bugged by trained agents. US intelligence agencies then have remote access to the machines.
Although it is unclear which Americans are being targeted, one popular product the NSA is using is a USB "hardware implant" which they have been using since 2009.
Der Spiegel came upon the information through internal NSA documents. NSA agents order the bugs and other tools through a "mail-order spy catalog" which offers backdoors into both the hardware and software of nearly all major computer and computer parts makers like Cisco, Juniper Networks, Dell, Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor, Samsung, and Huawei.
Making matters worse, the NSA also intercepts error reports sent from the Windows operating system and then uses the reports to find exploits and then target the computer.