NSA Spying Activities Supposedly Include Installing Spyware On Hardware

NSA Spying Activities Supposedly Include Installing Spyware On Hardware

Reports have indicated that National Security Agency or NSA spying activities include the planting of backdoors and spyware on servers, routers and similar computer network devices before they are delivered outside the United States.

The supposed interception of hardware by the NSA was revealed through the book, “No Place To Hide” by Glenn Greenwald. The book is based on the NSA leaks of Edward Snowden. It was based on documents that Greenwald supposed obtained from Snowden.

As luck would have it, Huawei was accused by the US government of doing the same activities in 2012 for the Chinese government.

The Chinese telecommunications manufacturer was informed by the US House Intelligence Committee that it was concerned on attempts of hacking into US networks by the Chinese government through the telecommunications equipment of the company. Huawei was adamant with its denial that it was not involved in any cyber-spying activities. The White House also reviewed the security risks created by the company but was not able to find proof of the alleged spying activities.

However, the relationship between the United States and Huawei was trained due to the accusations, which led to the pull out of the company from the United States market.

The leaked report referred to by Greenwald on his book outlines the supposed NSA spying activities. The report provides details on the activities wherein US-manufactured hardware is intercepted by the NSA, which embeds surveillance tools before repackaging them and delivering them to its international buyers.

The NSA will have reasonable access to networks and users with the backdoor surveillance systems. The NSA report showed one case where a beacon transmitted the NSA covert infrastructure after a number of months. The call back by the beacon allowed the agency to gain access and utilize the device while surveying the network.

Earlier NSA spying activities were made public following a report by a German-based newspaper. The report indicated that the agency intercepted electronic equipment deliveries and planted spyware to gain access to systems after they are installed. The report indicated that backdoors were embedded by the agency into hard drives, computers, routers, and similar devices manufactured by Dell, Huawei, Samsung, Maxtor, Western Digital Cisco, and Seagate.

The NSA spying activities were not categorically denied by the agency, but it did not give any indications it was installing spyware into US-manufactured equipment.

Posted by James Fried on Wednesday May 14 2014, 4:48 AM EST. Ref: CNET. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0