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March 12, 2014 11:51 am - NewsBehavingBadly.com

Glenn Greenwald’s First Look Media reports that that the National Security Agency is breaking into “potentially millions of computers worldwide” and installing malware “implants.”

“In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social-media site as a launching pad to infect a target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive,” First Look reported on Glenn Greenwald’s Intercept channel, citing a classified slide presentation from 2009. “In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer’s microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites.”

As part of the “industrial-scale exploitation,” the agency is leveraging Facebook’s global appeal to trick targets into logging in to a doppelganger version of the site, a technique dubbed “Quantumhand.”

The NSA responds:

“Signals intelligence shall be collected exclusively where there is a foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purpose.”

D.B. Hirsch
D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.