WikiLeaks on Tuesday released a trove of documents from the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) stating that the American spy agency can easily hack into your television, smartphones and can possibly control your car.
The whistleblower site posted around 9,000 documents on its website, stating that they were leaked from the CIA. The release of confidential federal documents is described as the largest-ever publication of secret intelligence materials from the US.
WikiLeaks said that a trove of CIA documents, hacking tools and code representing "the majority of its hacking arsenal" were leaked within the cyber security community. The organisation said that it had received and published a part of those documents from the intelligence agency.
"This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA," WikiLeaks said, according to AFP.
The White House and the CIA have not confirmed whether the documents released by WikiLeaks are genuine. If confirmed, the massive leak of confidential documents will prove to be a new embarrassment for the US intelligence.
Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee, had exposed National Security Agency's (NSA) spying on Americans' communications in 2013 and the subsequent arrest of an NSA official for removing massive amounts of top-secret material to his home over 20 years.
The non-profit organisation also said the leaked data shows that the CIA is now competing with the NSA in cyber warfare. The NSA is the US government's main electronic spy organisation.
The documents show that the CIA exploits weakness in hardware and software systems, including the ones made by US firms without letting these companies know about the said flaws. WikiLeaks also said that the documents state that CIA has produced more than 1,000 malware systems which can hack and take control of people's personal electronic devices.
Reports state that these CIA hacking tools have targeted iPhones, Android systems on personal phones like the one still used by the US President Donald Trump, popular Microsoft software, and Samsung smart TVs and have transformed these gadgets into microphones, according to WikiLeaks.
