WikiLeaks released new documents on Thursday within the Vault 7 documents, which contain information on CIA’s hacking tools from the Dumbo project. Called Dumbo, the tool was not developed for spying on targets but to corrupt recordings from webcams and microphones where the deployment a special group within the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence could be compromised.
“Today, August 3rd 2017 WikiLeaks publishes documents from the Dumbo project of the Central Intelligence Agency”, announced WikiLeaks on Thursday. It essentially allows an agent to cover his or her tracks. There are some limitations to the tool.
Controlled by a USB stick, field agents are able to gain access to a Windows system from an administration position, assuming the rights to mute microphones, disable all network adapters, and suspend camera recording while notifying the agent of active files to facilitate deleting or corrupting materials. The release states that it supports 32bit Windows XP, Windows Vista, and newer versions of Windows operating system. It is not clear if the program has been updated since then to support 64-bit builds or other OSes.
Dumbo is run directly from a USB stick, and requires administrator privileges to carry out its task. The document indicates that the thumb drive has to be connected to the machine for Dumbo to work: “For the log to be maintained, the thumb drive Dumbo is executed from must remain plugged into the system throughout the duration of the operation“.
It identifies installed devices like webcams and microphones, either locally or connected by wireless (Bluetooth, WiFi) or wired networks. “All processes related to the detected devices (usually recording, monitoring or detection of video/audio/network streams) are also identified and can be stopped by the operator”.
WikiLeaks released its first batch of documents from the Vault 7 project earlier this year in March.
As part of a PAG entry-operation, home security systems and webcams can be faked or destroyed to inhibit evidence of an intrusion operation, WikiLeaks claims.