Kaspersky’s reconstructions of the spying programs show that they could work in disk drives sold by more than a dozen companies, comprising essentially the entire market. They include Western Digital Corp, Seagate Technology Plc, Toshiba Corp, IBM, Micron Technology Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.
Western Digital, Seagate and Micron said they had no knowledge of these spying programs. Toshiba and Samsung declined to comment. IBM did not respond to requests for comment.
Getting the source code
Raiu said the authors of the spying programs must have had access to the proprietary source code that directs the actions of the hard drives. That code can serve as a roadmap to vulnerabilities, allowing those who study it to launch attacks much more easily.
‘There is zero chance that someone could rewrite the [hard drive] operating system using public information,’ Raiu said.
Concerns about access to source code flared after a series of high-profile cyberattacks on Google Inc and other U.S. companies in 2009 that were blamed on China. Investigators have said they found evidence that the hackers gained access to source code from several big U.S. tech and defense companies.
It is not clear how the NSA may have obtained the hard drives’ source code. Western Digital spokesman Steve Shattuck said the company ‘has not provided its source code to government agencies.’ The other hard drive makers would not say if they had shared their source code with the NSA.
Seagate spokesman Clive Over said it has ‘secure measures to prevent tampering or reverse engineering of its firmware and other technologies.’ Micron spokesman Daniel Francisco said the company took the security of its products seriously and ‘we are not aware of any instances of foreign code.’
Kaspersky uncovers online spy tools with apparent links to NSA
According to former intelligence operatives, the NSA has multiple ways of obtaining source code from tech companies, including asking directly and posing as a software developer. If a company wants to sell products to the Pentagon or another sensitive U.S. agency, the government can request a security audit to make sure the source code is safe.
‘They don’t admit it, but they do say, “We’re going to do an evaluation, we need the source code,”’ said Vincent Liu, a partner at security consulting firm Bishop Fox and former NSA analyst. ‘It’s usually the NSA doing the evaluation, and it’s a pretty small leap to say they’re going to keep that source code.’
The NSA declined to comment on any allegations in the Kaspersky report. Vines said the agency complies with the law and White House directives to protect the United States and its allies ‘from a wide array of serious threats.’
Kaspersky called the authors of the spying program ‘the Equation group,’ named after their embrace of complex encryption formulas.
The group used a variety of means to spread other spying programs, such as by compromising jihadist websites, infecting USB sticks and CDs, and developing a self-spreading computer worm called Fanny, Kaspersky said.
Fanny was like Stuxnet in that it exploited two of the same undisclosed software flaws, known as ‘zero days,’ which strongly suggested collaboration by the authors, Raiu said. He added that it was ‘quite possible’ that the Equation group used Fanny to scout out targets for Stuxnet in Iran and spread the virus.
Read more:
The article said ... “It is not clear how the NSA may have obtained the hard drives’ source code. Western Digital spokesman Steve Shattuck said the company ‘has not provided its source code to government agencies.’ The other hard drive makers would not say if they had shared their source code with the NSA.”
— — —
WELL ... a boatload of money from one of these agencies to someone on the inside would “shake loose” the source code! ... :-) ...
I wouldn’t think it would be that hard.
Well, gee, Mr. Wizard, do you suppose that at some point the source code was transmitted over the internet?