Days after it leaked hundreds of files documenting CIA hacking practices, WikiLeaks said it will work with tech companies to combat those techniques.
The radical transparency organization plans to give tech companies detailed information about the tools the CIA is using, founder Julian Assange said in a press conference Thursday. Assange held the press conference inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has lived since 2012.
Earlier this week, WikiLeaks began leaking documents and files from the CIA that detailed how the agency is hacking iPhones, Samsung smart TVs and Android devices. Once it’s hacked a device, the CIA can bypass encryption on messaging services and access the camera and microphone.
One specific tool, developed along with the UK’s M15 agency, allows the CIA to turn a Samsung smart TV into a wiretap device by making it appear off while it’s actually on and recording conversations.
The documents also showed that the CIA was not reporting vulnerabilities, or cybersecurity flaws, to tech companies, as the U.S. government had committed to do under the Vulnerabilities Equities Process.
In Thursday’s press conference, Assange said tech companies have approached the organization asking for more details regarding the CIA’s tools. WikiLeaks plans to give the information to these companies to allow them to secure their products before the data is released to the public.
“We have decided to work with them, to give them some exclusive access to some of the technical details we have, so that fixes can be pushed out,” Assange said.
Assange also spoke a bit about how Wikileaks accessed these documents, saying it was a result of the CIA keeping their hacking toolkit all in one place.
“The Central Intelligence Agency lost control of its entire cyberweapons arsenal,” Assange said. “This is an historic act of devastating incompetence to have created such an arsenal and stored it all in one place and not secured it.”
The CIA has not yet commented on the authenticity of the leak.
