Security News Vault 7: CIA Tool Can Shut Down Webcams and Corrupt Video Recordings

[LASER_oneXM]

WikiLeaks has released today eight manuals from the CIA's Dumbo project, a tool that the Agency uses to disable webcams, microphones, and other surveillance software.
The purpose of this tool is to cripple audio and video surveillance on critical targets so that field agents can perform their missions.
The tool — named Dumbo — isn't malware but a Windows-only utility that agents carry around on a USB thumb drive. The agent inserts the tool in one of the target's computers and runs it.

Dumbo corrupts the enemy's audio/video surveillance
Dumbo is designed to automatically detect installed devices like webcams and microphones, either locally or connected by wireless (Bluetooth, WiFi) or wired networks. The tool lets operators disable these devices.

In addition, Dumbo also detects any processes related to these devices and the processes of recording or monitoring software. Agents can use the tool to delete or corrupt these processes, and indirectly their recordings.

The latest manual is entitled Dumbo v3.0 and is dated June 25, 2015. According to the manual, Dumbo needs SYSTEM privileges in order to run. This implies that CIA agents must use dedicated exploits together with Dumbo in the case they don't have access to a SYSTEM-level account.

 

[frogboy]

No problems here all webcams are disabled already.

 

[Deleted member 178]

Now that is "movie-style" CIA