#DarkSeaSkies: How the CIA Can Control Your MacBook in Just 29 Seconds

It’s known as DarkSeaSkies…. Hacking tools that allows the CIA access to Apple products. One knicknamed the “Sonic Screwdriver” gives an agent the ability to hack and remotely control a MacBook Air in less than half a minute.

Delivered via “supply chain intercept or gift to the target,” DarkSeaSkies runs in the background and gives the CIA remote control of the laptop. The 2009 “user requirements” make it sound like this one requires a thumb drive: “It is assumed that an operator or asset has one-time physical access to the target system and can boot the target system to an external flash drive.”

CIA’s ‘Sonic Screwdriver’ tool hacks Macbook computers, #WikiLeaks reveals user’s guide for it https://t.co/nbcULIJ6Xd #DarkMatter pic.twitter.com/uBuNKDBvyB

— RT (@RT_com) March 24, 2017

Well, at least they required physical proximity to your laptop for at least 29 seconds eight years ago.

Now? Well, technology has come a long way in just a decade.

RT reports:

DarkSeaSkies is actually made up of three components, Dark Matter, SeaPea and NightSkies.

DarkMatter is installed in a computer’s kernal-space (core of computer’s operating system, usually in protected area of memory). It then installs the other two components of the tool, SeaPea and NightSkies.

SeaPea is installed in the kernal and executes and hides NightSkies, which is implanted in the user the space (computer’s memory area that deals with apps and software).

“All files, network connections, and processes associated with the NightSkies beacon are hidden by the SeaPea root-kit,” the document reads. NightSkies is the beaconing tool used to monitor and send information from the phone to a Listening Post (LP), which collects the incoming data.

And that’s that. NightSkies, made up of an implant that runs undetected, a Listening Post (LP) and a post-processing program is used by the CIA to infiltrate, track, and remotely control iPhones. The LP works like a “drop box,” sucking up a persons email metadata, their browser histories including Internet and YouTube… you name it.

#DarkMatter A breakdown of the three components used in #NightSkies – CIA tool installed on new iPhones to allow monitoring & manipulation pic.twitter.com/2Q8E9PtWr8

— Christine Maguire (@_ChrisMaguire) March 23, 2017

The kicker?

RT notes Apple’s supply chain had to have been compromised by the CIA long before 2008, however:

The revelation that the CIA is physically infiltrating factory fresh phones suggests it has accessed the organization’s supply chain, meaning they may be accessing phones as they are shipped to targets, with CIA agents or assets physically tampering with suspects’ phones before they even receive them.

The fact that NightSkies was on version 1.2 by 2008 suggests it had been employed before then. The document references a 1.1 version, and explains that NightSkies has the capability to self-upgrade once installed.

You have to wonder: has it really dawned on people how late in the game we are at this point if the government has direct access and control of your computer and phone???