Pierluigi Paganini January 29, 2014

Edward Snowden revealed to the German public broadcaster ARD TV that the NSA is involved in industrial espionage against foreign governments and businesses.

The former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency is responsible of  industrial espionage, for year governments are blaming China for cyber espionage and now the popular whistleblower presented an uncomfortable truth to the German television network. Snowden during an interview on the public broadcaster ARD TV revealed the NSA was involved in cyber espionage activities against foreign governments and private companies like the German Siemens. The news is not sensational, in many cases the issued documents have reported the activities of the NSA to spy on foreign politic representatives and media, clamorous are the spy stories on the Chancellor Angela Merkel.  Last week the US President, Barack Obama, commented for Germany’s ZDF TV the case, sustaining that espionage of Mrs Merkel’s mobile phone had been a clamorous mistake and would not happen again.

“If there’s information at Siemens that’s beneficial to US national interests – even if it doesn’t have anything to do with national security – then they’ll take that information nevertheless,” said Snowden. 

The diffusion of the NSA catalog on tools and exploits used by NSA presaged the possible use of technology, not only for defensive purposes, but also for espionage to steal information such as trade secrets and intellectual property. Snowden remarked that he has no more control on the diffusion of leaked documents from NSA, everything is now managed by a restricted number of trusted journalists. The former intelligence contractor also said that he fears for his life, he is sure that US Intelligence wants to kill him.

“There are significant threats but I sleep very well,” “These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket and then watch me die in the shower,” Snowden reported referring to a report on a US website. 

According Snowden, the NSA is engaged in industrial espionage, it infected computers all over the world after penetrating computer networks with its technology, even if they were disconnected from the internet, the  technology used covert channel of radio waves transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards, as explained in the NSA catalog. The cyber espionage programme has a code name, it is Quantum, it included within the target of espionage, foreign businesses, units of the Chinese military and foreign intelligence officials.  The unique certainty is that Snowden has changed the perception of Intelligence, demonstrating how governments abuse of the technology to collect any kind of information on everything … we are all moving targets.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs –  Edward Snowden, cyber espionage)