WikiLeaks published more than 8,000 CIA documents, mainly dealing with surveillance techniques and tools considered as cyber weapons.

  • According to WikiLeaks, the CIA can hack into smart TV, record conversations
  • Top transparency organization direction says most hackers know smartphones are not secure
  • White House, CIA refuse to comment

The WikiLeaks claims have not been authenticated and the U.S. government is not commenting on it. However, WikiLeaks claims it could be the largest leak of U.S. intelligence tools ever.

Some of the controversial parts of the leak, called Vault 7, shed light into CIA operations. One surveillance technique called "Weeping Angel" hacks into smart TVs, essentially turning them into a wiretap, according to the claims.

The leaks claim British Intelligence was also involved in this program.

Basically, the program “fake-off” would shut down a smart TV, so the owner falsely believes it is off when it really is on, according to the leaks.

The voice recognition app within the TV would record conversations in the room and send them over the Internet to a covert CIA server, according to the leaks. Another revelation was that as of October 2014, CIA started development of hacking into vehicles.

WikiLeaks reports also said the CIA uses the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany as a covert base for its hackers.

WikiLeaks says some of these hacking techniques would allow the CIA to mask its hacking to make it look like someone else did it.

A former CIA Analyst, Aki Peritz, said if this claim is true, WikiLeaks has dealt a significant blow to U.S. national security.

"Every time a place like WikiLeaks blows our ops, it means that the bad guys evolve," Peritz said.

A top transparency organization, The Sunlight Foundation, said the leaks do not change much of what was already known.

"This doesn't fundamentally change the security posture of anyone because we've known these sources and methods exist,” said Alex Howard, Sunlight Foundation deputy director. “If you go to annual security conferences and talk to hackers, they know that smartphones are not as secure as they might need to be to defend against a nation-state."

Howard said there is a troubling aspect of the leaks if they are true.

"This looks like the United States government has a trove of ways to compromise individuals’ devices or their services or some combination of the two that they're not releasing to the public,” said Howard. “Which means effectively they know that parts of our digital infrastructure are insecure but they're not acting to fix it because it enables them to do surveillance of targets."

WikiLeaks said it published on Tuesday because President Donald Trump ordered a review of all CIA cyber operations last month. WikiLeaks felt it timely to get the information out before that governmental report.

All this happens as the president recently claimed his offices were wiretapped during the election by his predecessor.

Howard thinks the WikiLeaks' Vault 7 and the president's claims make matters more confusing for the public. ​

"This kind of release is going to cause the world to be mindful or aware again the United States has tremendous capacity to surveil people if it chooses and I think that will be connected to his comments," said Howard.

If the leaks are true, Howard repeated the assertion that the government is not releasing vulnerabilities obtained through CIA hacks to the tech companies as promised.

The standard answer from intelligence officials was they cannot comment on intelligence.

The White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer also declined to comment.

One of the more revealing reactions came from someone who the U.S. government considers a traitor, former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.