The CIA works on a project to spy on particular routers

Wikileaks reveals the practices of the United States to monitor the navigation of its citizens

     WikiLeaks has published how the US CIA is looking for ways to monitor the internet activity of its citizens. According to this web page, the government of the United States developed a project called CherryBlossom, designed to control the particular Wi-Fi routers, among other devices.

In collaboration with the Stanford Research Institute (SRI International), a non-profit US agency, the CIA has used CherryBlossom to force these devices to spy on specific users of private homes, public spaces such as bars, hotels or airports, or Business.

According to WikiLeaks, this type of device "is ideal for 'Man-in-the-Middle' attacks, through which it could monitor, control and manipulate without difficulty the Internet traffic of the users connected to that network.

    This alteration in the flow of data between the user and the Internet services allowed the infected device to transmit malicious content to force vulnerabilities in the applications or operating system of the target computer.

To convert a router into a spy device, the CIA and SRI International had to implement a custom CherryBlossom firmware. Since several of these devices allowed to incorporate this program wirelessly, in those cases "it was not necessary a physical access to the device for a successful infection", they relate from WikiLeaks.

Once infected, the router became an instrument to guide a command and control server determined information about the status of the device and its security measures, which this server sent to a database.

Afterwards, a specific mission was sent to the victim's team, consisting of monitoring, actions to be carried out on the target and instructions on how and when to go back to guiding information.