Following the disclosure of more than 8,000 pages of secret documents, which revealed that CIA hacks into people's personal electronic devices, the tech companies were concerned about the fact that neither CIA nor WikiLeaks are handing over the hacking tools which can help them patch the flaws in their security system. But now Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks have announced that his organization will provide the technology companies with exclusive access to the CIA hacking tools, so that they can correct the security flaws.
However, it's not yet clear how WikiLeaks intend to co-operate with the tech companies or whether, the tech-firms will accept his offer. This offer, if legitimate, puts the tech companies in a confusing position, where they would have to decide whether to co-operate with Assange, who is believed to be a pawn of Russia by some US lawmakers and officials, or a secretive US agency which breaches people's privacy, reports Nasdaq.
The anti-secrecy group has released documents last Tuesday describing CIA's secret hacking tools and snippets of computer codes. It didn't publish the full programs. Assange later said that he possesses "a lot more information" about the CIA's cyber weapons and that would be released soon. He also criticized CIA for "devastating incompetence" for not being able to protect such sensitive material.
On Thursday during a press conference broadcast via Facebook Live he said, "Considering what we think is the best way to proceed and hearing these calls from some of the manufacturers, we have decided to work with them to give them some exclusive access to the additional technical details that we have so that the fixes can be developed and pushed out, so people can be secure,"
Responding to these fiery comments of Julian Assange, CIA spokesman Jonathon Liu said in a statement, "As we've said previously, Julian Assange is not exactly a bastion of truth and integrity. Despite the efforts of Assange and his ilk, CIA continues to aggressively collect foreign intelligence overseas to protect America from terrorists, hostile nation states and other adversaries."
As a matter of fact Google, Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Cisco, Linux and many more were reported to be infected by the CIA, in those documents released by WikiLeaks.
For example, one file from the leaks disclosed a program called 'Weeping Angel', which could allegedly take control over the Samsung smart TV and turn it into a microphone to record the conversation in the room, while making it appear to be turned off.
You can see the Facebook Live press conference here.
