The National Security Agency maintains an elite hacker unit
whose operational mandate includes penetrating the
cybersecurity of foreign governments and planting spyware in
consumer tech products, according to a report by German
magazine Der Spiegel .
Hardware and software products by Microsoft, Huawei, Cisco
and other leading tech firms are among those reportedly
compromised by the NSA's Office of Tailored Access
Operations, or TAO.
Citing internal NSA documents, Der Spiegel identifies TAO as a
unit "born of the Internet," founded in 1997 and growing
quickly in the years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11,
2001. In 2010, according to the report, TAO conducted 279
operations around the world.
Officials at the NSA refused to discuss details of TAO's
operations with Der Spiegel , but said its "work is centered on
computer network exploitation in support of foreign intelligence
collection."
The average person may not find much cause for concern in
revelations that TAO has gained access to undersea fiber-optic
cables and spied on the leaders of foreign countries. But the
NSA's special unit has also seen fit to target users of
Facebook, Yahoo and other internet services for exploitation.
While any one person is unlikely to be the target of an NSA
mission, the agency certainly has the desire and ability to spy
on people around the world. According to a classified budget
document, the NSA expects to have backdoor access to 85,000
computers around the world by the end of 2013, up from
21,252 in 2008.
At least one tech giant is taking action. Cisco has launched an
investigation based on Der Spiegel 's report. "At this time, we
do not know of any new product vulnerabilities, and will
continue to pursue all avenues to determine if we need to
address any new issues," John Stewart, Cisco's chief security
officer, said in a company blog post. "We do not work with any
government to weaken our products for exploitation, nor to
implement any so-called security 'back doors' in our
products."

when I saw NSA, I thought it was related to Nigeria. well, I ll be back