News of the NSA’s spying activities has come in hard and fast ever since former contractor Edward Snowden opened up about its nefarious activities. Reports have now emerged that the US National Security Agency infected more than 50,000 computer networks around the world with malware, in order to steal sensitive information.Dutch media outlet NRC has picked the information off a management presentation that dates back to 2012, explaining how the NSA collects information from the world over. NSA used something called the Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) in more than 50,000 locations.
The slide that talks about CNE
This would let the NSA install malicious software onto computers. An example of this was first discovered in September this year at a Belgian telecom provider Belgacom. The attack was, however, carried out by the NSA’s ally, the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). The GCHQ infiltrated the ranks by luring employees to a false LinkedIn page.Earlier, The Washington Post had published articles explaining how these attacks are carried out. NSA’s computer related attacks are performed by a special department called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) that reportedly employs more than a thousand hackers. There were about 20,000 implants made by TAO as early as 2008 and by the middle of last year had grown to 50,000. The Washington Post says that these kinds of cyber operations are being carried out by the NSA since 1998. The malware is controllable remotely and can be activated by a click of a button. According to the slide revealed, India figures in the list prominently too, with about four implants, including one at New Delhi being plot on the map.
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