Wikileaks is going to provide technology companies with an exclusive access to CIA hacking tools so they can patch software flaws, founder Julian Assange said on Thursday.
If the offer is legitimate, it would place technology companies in the unusual position of relying on Assange, a man believed by some U.S. officials and lawmakers to be an untrustworthy pawn of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to share cyber vulnerabilities stockpiled by a secretive U.S. spy agency.
“Considering what we think is the best way to proceed and hearing these calls from some of the manufacturers, we have decided to work with them to give them some exclusive access to the additional technical details that we have so that the fixes can be developed and pushed out, so people can be secure,” Assange said during an online press conference from the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
Assange took refuge at the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape, which he denies.
WikiLeaks’ disclosures this week caused alarmed in the technology world and among consumers because of the potential privacy implications of the cyber espionage tactics that were described.
WikiLeaks’ publication of the documents reignited a debate about whether U.S. intelligence agencies should hoard serious cyber security vulnerabilities rather than share them with the public. An interagency process created under former President Barack Obama called for
President Donald Trump believes changes are needed to safeguard secrets at the CIA, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing on Thursday. “He believes that the systems at the CIA are outdated and need to be updated.”
Assange’s group released Democratic emails during the 2016 presidential campaign that U.S. intelligence agencies say were hacked by Russia to try to tilt the election against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. He is regarded with distaste by many in Washington, although Trump, then the Republican candidate, supported the group’s email releases last year.
