Cybersecurity

CIA wrote code 'to impersonate' Russia’s Kaspersky Lab anti-virus company, WikiLeaks says

WikiLeaks says it has published the source code for the CIA hacking tool ‘Hive,’ which indicates that the agency-operated malware could mask itself under fake certificates and impersonate public companies, namely Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab.

The CIA multi-platform hacking suite ‘Hive’ was able to impersonate existing entities to conceal suspicious traffic from the user being spied on, the source code of the malicious program indicates, WikiLeaks said on Thursday.

The extraction of information would therefore be misattributed to an impersonated company, and at least three examples in the code show that Hive is able to impersonate Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab, WikiLeaks stated.