NSA hid spying software in hard drive firmware

[cozk]

The U.S. National Security Agency has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers, giving the agency the means to eavesdrop on the majority of the world's computers, according to cyber researchers and former operatives.

STORY: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/nsa-hid-spying-software-in-hard-drive-firmware-report-says-1.2959252

KASPERSKY super technical PDF REPORT: http://25zbkz3k00wn2tp5092n6di7b5k.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2015/02/Equation_group_questions_and_answers.pdf


Kaspersky said it found personal computers in 30 countries infected with one or more of the spying programs, with the most infections seen in Iran, followed by Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria. (Kaspersky Lab/Reuters)

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[Slark]

Moral of the story: if government wants to know what you are up to they will know - no matter what.Big brother is watching, with global social network, internet communicators spying is now easier than ever before.

[Klestin]

These two things do not go together:

1) Software was "completely undetectable" from the PC
2) Software executed on the PC

[croato]

I am not suprised, NSA is running USA and if they spy their alies like German goverment sure they spy regular ppl if nothing then to test their computing power lol.

[ticoti]

any way to know if our drive is one of that ? 

[Q7]

Scary. But i wonder how this is possible since each hard disk manufacturer had their own proprietary hard drives' source code which mean they have to gain access one by one to insert the program.

[cryptworld]

this is creepy... we can't escape from the invasion of our privacy

[orsotheysaid]

Thats pretty fucking creepy.

[calme]

The U.S. government is out of control and does not represent or care about the U.S. American people.  

[rich93]

Is the KASPERSKY PDF available directly from KASPERSKY? Is there a KASPERSKY link to it?

[BCwinning]

One of the whistle blowers released this info a while back.
This is the first 3rd party source that I know of that has tied it all together so neatly.

[croato]

The U.S. government is out of control and does not represent or care about the U.S. American people.  

That is true but not only U.S. govt, most goverments dont care about their ppl.

[bitkilo]

Can't take a shit without the NSA or some government agency knowing what you ate last night anymore.
I didn't see Australia on the list so that's good but we have been in bed with the US for so long im sure there doing somthing similar here too.

[Agestorzrxx]

This is creazy, where is our privacy.

[cakir]

They're gonna make me use my pc without a hdd... (Remove HDD and Boot a linux distro from usb / cd-rom)

[rich93]

Is the KASPERSKY PDF available directly from KASPERSKY? Is there a KASPERSKY link to it?

There is a page about the PDF here:
http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/virus/2015/equation-group-the-crown-creator-of-cyber-espionage

But it doesn't look like they host the PDF or link to it from their site, however I do believe it is genuine.

Thanks, its all over major news sites like Reuters, but I can't find a direct KASPERSKY link to it.

[manselr]

It's clear now: we need open source hardware as well as internet decentralization.

[Gleb Gamow]

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/3736/is-wuala-lacie-the-largest-company-to-accept-bitcoins

Is Wuala (LaCie) the largest company to accept Bitcoins?

I just found out that you can pay for Wuala with Bitcoins. They are owned by LaCie, who have a revenue of €351.8 million according to Wikipedia. I think this makes them by far the largest company to accept Bitcoin for payment. Is that correct or are there other big players in the economy?

trade
shareimprove this question
asked May 20 '12 at 8:53

jl6
844312
         
Just to note that LaCie is now owned by Seagate (seagate.com/about/newsroom/press-releases/…) meaning that if Wuala is still accepting bitcoins (wuala.com/en/bitcoin) then this is probably by far the biggest company by market cap. accepting bitcoins in some form. –  kirian Oct 10 '12 at 14:44

[neurotypical]

Is there an actual way to buy non NSA infected hardware or its a pipedream?

[rich93]

Is there an actual way to buy non NSA infected hardware or its a pipedream?

If the story is right then they only targeted a limited amount of people's computers that held high value information. Most people were unaffected unless they worked high up in the government, or the military, or some other sensitive job.

The hardware was sold uninfected but sometimes targeted with viruses that infected its firmware after purchase.