The National Security Agency targeted two leading encryption technologies, according to a new document published by former Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, further characterizing the massive scale of the agency’s surveillance.
Specifically, the document notes, the agency targeted “two leading encryption chips,” technology placed in devices that encrypt the contents and shield them from hacking or surveillance. “The reference to ‘the two leading encryption chips’ provides some hints, but no definitive proof, as to which ones were successfully targeted,” wrote Greenwald, who broke the news about the NSA’s ubiquitous surveillance regime in 2013.
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After Greenwald published internal NSA documents in 2013, which were leaked by former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, it came to light that the agency had managed to obtain encryption keys that allow for “backdoor” access to protected devices.
“How keys are acquired is shrouded in secrecy, but independent cryptographers say many are probably collected by hacking into companies’ computer servers, where they are stored,” ProPublica detailed at the time.
During the 2013 reporting, publications redacted the fact that what had specifically been compromised were top encryption chips. Greenwald released the unredacted information on Monday, explaining that he was motivated by last month’s discovery that the NSA’s tampering had compromised a major tech company’s firewall.
The flaw, which was discovered by a German security company, involved a sophisticated backdoor built into the systems of California-based Juniper Networks. Experts say the backdoor was probably created by a foreign actor using weaknesses that were originally placed by the NSA.
“In light of that news, we examined the documents referenced by those 2013 articles with particular attention to that controversial redaction, and decided that it was warranted to un-redact that passage,” Greenwald wrote.
Matthew Green, a cryptography expert at Johns Hopkins, added that the ordeal was diminishing the reputation of U.S. tech products, telling Greenwald, “The damage has already been done. From what I’ve heard, many foreign purchasers have already begun to look at all U.S.-manufactured encryption technology with a much more skeptical eye as a result of what the NSA has done.”
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The revelation comes as several U.S. lawmakers push to openly prohibit U.S. companies from offering products with strong encryption. Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Richard Burr, R-N.C., have sais they hope to see legislation to that effect this year.
