Documents reveal NSA’s global hack of mobile networks

Washington: Whistle-blower Edward Snowden has provided documents to The Intercept that reveals how the National Security Agency (NSA) hacks mobile networks across the globe.

The NSA has spied on hundreds of companies globally including those that are close allies of the US.

Documents also reveal how the NSA plans to introduce new flaws secretly into communication systems in order to tap them into a controversial tactic which experts claim could be exposing the public to criminal hackers.

A covert operation codenamed ‘AURORAGOLD’ has monitored the content of messages sent and received by more than 1,200 email accounts associated with major mobile operators across the world.

NSA spokeswoman Vanee’ Vines said in a statement the agency works to identify and report on the communications of valid international targets to anticipate threats to the US and its allies.

According to a report, In March 2011, two weeks before the Western intervention in Libya, a secret message was delivered to the National Security Agency. An intelligence unit within the US military’s Africa Command needed help to hack into Libya’s cell phone networks and monitor text messages.

For the NSA, the task was easy. The agency had already obtained technical information about the cell-phone carriers’ internal systems by spying on documents sent among company employees, and these details would provide the perfect blueprint to help the military break into the networks.

The NSA’s assistance in the Libya operation, however, was not an isolated case. It was part of a much larger surveillance program—global in its scope and ramifications—targeted not just at hostile countries.

One high-profile surveillance target is the GSM Association, an influential UK-headquartered trade group that works closely with large US-based firms including Microsoft, Facebook, AT&T, and Cisco, and is currently being funded by the US government to develop privacy-enhancing technologies.

Karsten Nohl, a leading cell-phone security expert and cryptographer who was consulted by The Intercept about details contained in the AURORAGOLD documents, said that the broad scope of information swept up in the operation appears aimed at ensuring virtually every cell-phone network in the world is NSA accessible.

The information collected from the companies is passed onto NSA “signals development” teams that focus on infiltrating communication networks. It is also shared with other US Intelligence Community agencies and with the NSA’s counterparts in countries that are part of the so-called “Five Eyes” surveillance alliance—the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.