CIA, yes that spy agency from the USA, has for several years the ability to hack any kind of router that facilitates access to the Internet for any kind of person on the planet. The information was revealed by Wikileaks, who told us that the CIA monitored various types of router models for several years and took a lot of information from them.
A hack called CherryBlossom allows the CIA to monitor the entire Internet activity of the victim whose router was hacked. Moreover, the CIA can redirect that person to its own website where it stores malware-type files with which it can infect their computers in order to steal the data stored in them.
Those from WikiLeaks have published documents that confirm that 25 models of routers from various manufacturers can be hacked by the CIA, but the real number is certainly much higher. The interesting part is that among those routers that the CIA can hack are not AirPort or Time Capsule, the router that Apple has been selling for years.
The CIA can hack any router, not even Apple's
Asus, Belkin, Buffalo, Dell, Dlink, Linksys, Motorola, Netgear, Senao and US Robotics are the companies whose routers can be hacked by the CIA at the moment. It is hard to say whether the lack of Apple products suggests that the CIA has not yet found a method to hack them, or the disclosure documents do not confirm this yet.
"In general, once a make, model, and hardware version of a device is supported, it is straightforward to implant any later firmware versions, or international firmware versions, as long as the device has not changed its underlying hardware or operating system."
We already know that there are CIA teams that have found ways to hack any kind of iPhone or Mac, so theoretically hacking any Apple router would be possible. However, until the appearance of documents that confirm this, we remain hopeful that Apple products would be somewhat safe when it comes to the CIA's ability to hack them.
