LIVE NOW WikiLeaks press conf on CIA "Dark matter" #Vault7 questions #askWL https://t.co/qCNqu7csO5
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) 23 марта 2017 г.
The "Dark Matter" contains documentation for several CIA projects that infect Apple Mac computer firmware eveloped by the CIA's Embedded Development Branch (EDB).
The Wikileaks founder has commented on the Wikileaks' latest release and has anwered questions. Julian Assange said that the CIA is the largest intelligence organization in the world with many employees.
He said that previously the NSA had more hacking spying tools than the CIA and a larger budget. But later, the CIA "has overtaken" the NSA. Its budget is rivalling the US Air Force now, he said.
The CIA also reinforced its budget by creating its own drone fleet, he said.
Wikileaks has no obligations as the whistleblowing site is just a publisher, he said. "We have professional security people who're working for us."
Assange said that on March 12, Wikileaks contacted tech giants like Apple, Google, Cisco etc. concerning the 'Vault-7' revelations.
"The problem is that all the good guys will get it and all the bad guys will get it," Assange said, commenting on why Wikileaks cannot publicly release information concerning issues in tech giants' production that allow the CIA to spy on people.
Assange said that on March 17, Mozilla provided first feedback to Wikileaks, while on March 20, Microsoft first contacted the whistleblower site. Moreover, Google also replied.
Assange said that many tech giants, including Google, have contacts with the US government. "People need to understand that," he added.
If a manufacturer comes to Wikileaks and says that there's a flaw that is extremely difficult to fix in practice, the whistleblowing site can cooperate on the issue, Assange said.
Instead of looking what information was released people refer to conspiracy theories to distract from the content of the revelations, Assange said, answering a question he considered "politicized" on the timing of 'Vault-7' release.
"Vault-7 is the largest intelligence publication in history," he said.
Earlier, Assange said that WikiLeaks seeks to work with tech companies to help them close revealed security gaps.
According to the website, a large archive comprising various viruses, malware, software vulnerability hacks and relevant documentation, was uncovered by US government hackers, which is how WikiLeaks gained access to some of the data from the trove.
Last week, Assange sent an email to Apple, Google, Microsoft and the other IT companies mentioned in the documents. But instead of providing the companies with the details from the trove, WikiLeaks requested the companies sign off on several conditions before being able to receive the information, sources close to the matter told Motherboard.
According to a source, among the conditions is a 90-day disclosure deadline, which would compel companies to commit to issuing a patch within three months.
