06/25/2014 Techcrunch.com reports that security researchers have discovered the tools that the U.S.06/25/2014 National Security Agency may have been using to spy on mobile phones

BY Ann Longmore-Etheridge

Techcrunch.com reports that security researchers have discovered the tools that the U.S. National Security Agency may have been using to spy on mobile phones. Edward Snowden has maintained that "eavesdroppers [can] hear us even if the phone seemed off and everything on our devices was open to a dedicated hacker. But he never said how it was done. Now we know… at least partially. The app used is called RCS/Galileo [and is produced] by an Italian company, The Hacking Team," Notes Techcrunch. "The app allows for full control of the data on the phone and allows users to activate the microphone on Android, iOS, and Blackberry devices. In two very detailed and independent posts, bothCitizen Lab and Kaspersky have produced some very interesting documentation of the program and have even traced a piece of Hacking Team software to a Trojan horse that had been modified to look like an Arabic news reader." Techcrunch notes that direct links to the NSA are still circumstantial, but that "the power of the remote control app is clearly disconcerting. An iOS phone left in a hotel room could be easily attacked and compromised at any time and Android phones are especially susceptible."
www.securitymanagement.com