When the U.S. government couldn't force Apple to give it access to the iPhone used by the shooter in the San Bernardino massacre, it reportedly paid $1 million for a secret software vulnerability that gave it full access to the phone. These undiscovered software bugs — so-called "zero day" vulnerabilities — are highly coveted by intelligence agencies, which consider them essential tools in the war on terror.This month's leak of top secret CIA documents, together with a recent leak of NSA hacking tools, shows that the U.S. government is an avid user of these undiscovered software bugs, and the agencies stockpile them as part of an expanding global cyber-arms race. What they don't do is disclose those vulnerabilities to the companies that make the products they want to penetrate, such as Apple in the San Bernardino case."It would mean unilaterally disarming themselves in cyberspace," security expert Robert Graham told VICE News. "The biggest use for zero days is for hacking phones — iPhones and Android — because that is what terrorists have as their primary computing platforms. Taking those zero days away from [the intelligence community] would probably have a big impact on what they do."Read the rest of this article on VICE NEWS.
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