WikiLeaks released new information from its CIA leak known as “Dark Matter” on Thursday. The newly released information outlines how the CIA would access information stored on apple products. “Dark Matter” is the second batch of leaks from an archive nicknamed “Vault 7.”
The release shows that the CIA needed physical access to the devices for many of the techniques they used. One user manual included in the Dark Matter released describes a “Sonic Screwdriver” that uses a modified Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet network adapter or other modified hardware to load malware while a Mac is booting.
“DarkSeaSkies,” a hacking technique hidden in the firmware of MacBook Air version 1.1, controls hardware that is not run by an operating system. The DarkSeaSkies documents also describe similar implants for iPhones.
The documents also range in age. Some of the documents in this release date as far back as 2009 while others are as current as 2016. Apple announced after the first release of documents that many of the security flaws mentioned in that archive had long since been patched.
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