Samsung Silent on WikiLeaks Dump of CIA Documents Showing Smart TV Hacks

Samsung representatives didn’t comment Tuesday on WikiLeaks’ disclosure that the CIA worked secretly with U.K. authorities in 2014 to hack Samsung smart TVs and turn them into covert microphones. The CIA also developed “numerous attacks to remotely hack and control popular smart phones,” WikiLeaks said of the 8,000-plus pages of CIA materials it released online Tuesday, the authenticity of which couldn’t be confirmed. “Infected phones can be instructed to send the CIA the user's geolocation, audio and text communications as well as covertly activate the phone's camera and microphone,” WikiLeaks said in a news release. In the case of the hacking of Samsung smart TVs, documents of “engineering notes” purported to be from a joint U.S.-U.K. “workshop” in June 2014 describe malware code-named “Weeping Angel” that can “suppress” the TV’s LED backlight to “improve the look” of a so-called “Fake-Off mode” that gives the owner the false impression the set is turned off when in fact it's listening to private conversations. A to-do list under the heading of “Future Work” expresses frustration that Samsung’s internet firmware updates may remove the Weeping Angel “implant” or “portions of the implant,” the documents say. CIA engineers also expressed concern that a blue LED on the back of the Samsung TV “remains powered when in Fake-Off mode” and thus threatened to tip off the unsuspecting owner, the documents say. Apple and Google representatives also didn’t comment Tuesday on the aspects of the leaked documents that describe how the CIA hacked iOS and Android smartphones from afar.