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Today, 9 November 2017, WikiLeaks publishes the source code and development logs to Hive, a major component of the CIA infrastructure to control its malware.
Hive solves a critical problem for the malware operators at the CIA. Even the most sophisticated malware implant on a target computer is useless if there is no way for it to communicate with its operators in a secure manner that does not draw attention. Using Hive even if an implant is discovered on a target computer, attributing it to the CIA is difficult by just looking at the communication of the malware with other servers on the internet. Hive provides a covert communications platform for a whole range of CIA malware to send exfiltrated information to CIA servers and to receive new instructions from operators at the CIA.
Hive can serve multiple operations using multiple implants on target computers. Each operation anonymously registers at least one cover domain (e.g. "perfectly-boring-looking-domain.com") for its own use. The server running the domain website is rented from commercial hosting providers as a VPS (virtual private server) and its software is customized according to CIA specifications. These servers are the public-facing side of the CIA back-end infrastructure and act as a relay for HTTP(S) traffic over a VPN connection to a "hidden" CIA server called 'Blot'.
The code shows how the CIA could impersonate Kaspersky Lab:
According to WikiLeaks, CIA used these fake certificates to impersonate existing entities including Kaspersky Lab. "The three examples included in the source code build a fake certificate for the anti-virus company Kaspersky Laboratory, Moscow pretending to be signed by Thawte Premium Server CA, Cape Town. In this way, if the target organization looks at the network traffic coming out of its network, it is likely to misattribute the CIA exfiltration of data to uninvolved entities whose identities have been impersonated," noted WikiLeaks.
Also at The Register (follow-up).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday November 16 2017, @05:24AM
People like you either give hunters a bad name, or enable mass-murderers. Hunters, unless they are on the long hunt, only need two rounds. One for the shot, another for the Coup d'Grace. Now, you may think hunter needs more, for in case the miss the first shot. Usually, when a hunter misses the first shot, there is no second shot, because the hunter is really no hunter at all. So there it is. Anyone carrying fifty rounds, with or without magazines to carry some fraction of that, needs to be shot down immmediately! Because they are no hunter, they are a mass murder! And you would have known that if you knew their family and the history of domestic abuse and the support for Trump and general anti-social misogynist tendencies that accompanied the accumulation of really pathetic .22 caliber guns (really, what kind of real man shoots anything below .30 cal? Are these High School warriors we are talking about here? Wolverines?) of a high rate of fire, which indicates cowardice and mental instability. If anyone owns a AR-15, in any, and I do mean ANY, of its civilian guises, we need to find that person, lay down a field of suppressive fire, and hope that we can take the poor crazy pathetic coward alive, by only wounding him. Yes, it is always, ALWAYS, a guy. I suggest targeting the left nut. Nothing says "you ought to surrender" more than having your left nut shot off. Unless, it is having your right nut shot off. Either way. Find these crazed violent bastards, before they strike again. Clock is ticking on this week. . . .