How the NSA hacks PCs, phones, routers, hard disks 'at speed of light': Spy tech catalog lea

01-02-2014 • http://www.theregister.co.uk, By Iain Thomson

Analysis A leaked NSA cyber-arms catalog has shed light on the technologies US and UK spies use to infiltrate and remotely control PCs, routers, firewalls, phones and software from some of the biggest names in IT.

The exploits, often delivered via the web, provide clandestine backdoor access across networks, allowing the intelligence services to carry out man-in-the-middle attacks that conventional security software has no chance of stopping.

And if that fails, agents can simply intercept your hardware deliveries from Amazon to install hidden gadgets that rat you out via radio communications.

The 50-page top-secret document, written by an NSA division called ANT, is part of an information dump sent to German magazine Der Spiegel, and expounded upon by journalist Jacob Appelbaum in his keynote to the 30th Chaos Communication Congress in Germany on Monday. You can watch a clearly furious Appelbaum in the video below.