:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/53579981/51044440.0.jpg)
WikiLeaks released over 8,000 pages of documents today detailing numerous CIA programs that appear to undermine encryption in iPhones, Google’s Android phones, Samsung smart TVs and other connected devices.
This may amount to one of the most explosive disclosures of mass government surveillance since the Snowden revelations in 2013.
The ability to undermine the encryption in these devices, according to WikiLeaks, has allowed the CIA to also compromise private messaging done with apps like Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, Weibo and Confide by hacking the smartphones underlying the apps to collect messaging and audio data before encryption is applied.
The encryption on these messaging apps, however, does not appear to be broken. Early reports indicated encryption on the apps had been compromised, which is not the case.
“These are not hacks against those apps, but hacks against the underlying operating systems,” said security technologist Bruce Schneier. The sentiment was echoed on Twitter by Edward Snowden:
PSA: This incorrectly implies CIA hacked these apps / encryption. But the docs show iOS/Android are what got hacked - a much bigger problem. https://t.co/Bw9AkBpOdt
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 7, 2017
Still, whether or not the encryption on these messaging apps or the devices that they are downloaded on were the point of vulnerability, one thing is clear: The secure messaging systems people rely on every day may not be so secure after all.
The document drop, code named “Vault 7,” is “the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency,” according to WikiLeaks.
Other CIA hacks detailed in today’s WikiLeaks disclosures include malware attacks to Windows, Mac OS X and Linux operating systems.
We reached out to Google and Apple for comment, but did not immediately hear back.
This story is still developing.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
