ANT_catalog

ANT catalog

ANT catalog

Classified catalog of hacking tools by the NSA

The ANT catalog[lower-alpha 1] (or TAO catalog) is a classified product catalog by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) of which the version written in 2008–2009 was published by German news magazine Der Spiegel in December 2013. Forty-nine catalog pages[lower-alpha 2] with pictures, diagrams and descriptions of espionage devices and spying software were published. The items are available to the Tailored Access Operations unit and are mostly targeted at products from US companies such as Apple, Cisco and Dell. The source is believed to be someone different than Edward Snowden, who is largely responsible for the global surveillance disclosures since 2013. Companies whose products could be compromised have denied any collaboration with the NSA in developing these capabilities. In 2014, a project was started to implement the capabilities from the ANT catalog as open-source hardware and software.

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Background

The Tailored Access Operations unit has existed since the late 90s. Its mission is to collect intelligence on foreign targets of the United States by hacking into computers and telecommunication networks.[3] It has been speculated for years before that capabilities like those in the ANT catalog existed.[1]

In 2012, Edward Snowden organized a CryptoParty together with Runa Sandvik, a former colleague of Jacob Appelbaum at The Tor Project. In June 2013, Snowden took internal NSA documents which he shared with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, resulting in the global surveillance disclosures.[4]

Publication

Jacob Appelbaum co-authored the English publication in Der Spiegel with Christian Stöcker [de] and Judith Horchert, which was publicized on 29 December 2013.[1] The related English publication on the same day about the TAO by Der Spiegel was also authored by the same people, and including Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach, Jörg Schindler [de] and Holger Stark [de].[5] On December 30, Appelbaum gave a lecture about "the militarization of the Internet" at the 30th Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, Germany.[6] At the end of his talk, he encouraged NSA employees to leak more documents.[7]

Apple denied the allegations that it collaborated on the development of DROPOUTJEEP in a statement to journalist Arik Hesseldahl from All Things Digital (part of the Wall Street Journal's Digital Network).[8] The Verge questioned how the program developed in later years, since the document was composed in the early period of the iPhone and smartphones in general.[9] Dell denied collaborating with any government in general, including the US government. John Stewart, senior vice president and chief security officer of Cisco stated that they were "deeply concerned and will continue to pursue all avenues to determine if we need to address any new issues." Juniper stated that they were working actively to address any possible exploit paths. Huawei stated they would take appropriate audits to determine if any compromise had taken place and would communicate if so. NSA declined to comment on the publication by Der Spiegel.[10]

Bruce Schneier wrote about the tools on his blog in a series titled "NSA Exploit of the Week". He stated that because of this, his website got blocked by the Department of Defense.[11]

Source

The source who leaked the ANT catalog to Der Spiegel is unknown as of 2024.

Officials at the NSA did not believe that the web crawler used by Snowden touched the ANT catalog and started looking for other people who could have leaked the catalog.[12]

Author James Bamford, who is specialized in the United States intelligence agencies, noted in a 2016 commentary article that Appelbaum has not identified the source who leaked the ANT catalog to him, which led people to mistakenly assume it was Edward Snowden. Bamford got unrestricted access to the documents cache from Edward Snowden and could not find any references to the ANT catalog using automated search tools, thereby concluding that the documents were not leaked by him.[13] Security expert Bruce Schneier has stated on his blog that he also believes the ANT catalog did not come from Snowden, but from a second leaker.[14]

Content

The published catalog pages were written between 2008 and 2009. The price of the items ranged from free up to $250,000.

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Follow-up developments

Security expert Matt Suiche noted that the software exploits leaked by the Shadow Brokers could be seen as genuine because it matched with names from the ANT catalog.[17] John Bumgarner has stated to IEEE Spectrum that US government suspicion of Huawei is based on its own ability to add backdoors as shown in the ANT catalog.[18]

NSA Playset

The NSA Playset is an open-source project inspired by the NSA ANT catalog to create more accessible and easy to use tools for security researchers.[19] Most of the surveillance tools can be recreated with off-the-shelf or open-source hardware and software. Thus far, the NSA Playset consists of fourteen items, for which the code and instructions can be found online on the project's homepage. After the initial leak, Michael Ossman, the founder of Great Scott Gadgets, gave a shout out to other security researchers to start working on the tools mentioned in the catalog and to recreate them. The name NSA Playset came originally from Dean Pierce, who is also a contributor (TWILIGHTVEGETABLE(GSM)) to the NSA Playset. Anyone is invited to join and contribute their own device. The requisites for an addition to the NSA Playset is a similar or already existing NSA ANT project, ease of use and a silly name (based on the original tool's name if possible). The silly name requisite is a rule that Michael Ossman himself came up with and an example is given on the project's website: "For example, if your project is similar to FOXACID, maybe you could call it COYOTEMETH." The ease of use part stems also from the NSA Playset's motto: "If a 10 year old can't do it, it doesn't count!"[19][20][21][22]

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See also

Explanatory notes

  1. Whether ANT stands for Advanced Network Technology or Access Network Technology is not known.[1]
  2. The article from Der Spiegel notes that it is a "50-page document" and that "nearly 50 pages" are published. The gallery contains 49 pages. Der Spiegel also noted that the document is likely far from complete.[2]
  3. If the price is listed in bulk, a calculation is made to get the unit price
  4. For two months
  5. Including installation costs
  6. When ordering 25 units, the price per item is US$1000
  7. Up to 4,000
  8. Varies from platform to platform
  9. Data Network Technologies, a division of the Tailored Access Operations
  10. 100 units for 625,000

References

  1. [1]
    Appelbaum, Jacob; Horchert, Judith; Stöcker, Christian (2013-12-29). "Catalog Advertises NSA Toolbox". Der Spiegel. ISSN 2195-1349. Archived from the original on 2014-01-04. Retrieved 2021-12-21.
  2. [2]
    Appelbaum, Jacob (2013-12-30). "Unit Offers Spy Gadgets for Every Need". Der Spiegel. ISSN 2195-1349. Archived from the original on 2022-04-11. Retrieved 2022-04-11.
  3. [3]
    Aid, Matthew M. "Inside the NSA's Ultra-Secret China Hacking Group". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 2022-02-12. Retrieved 2022-02-12.
  4. [4]
    Kelley, Michael B. "We Now Know A Lot More About Edward Snowden's Epic Heist — And It's Troubling". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 2022-04-06. Retrieved 2022-04-06.
  5. [5]
    "Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit". Der Spiegel. 2013-12-29. ISSN 2195-1349. Archived from the original on 2019-02-06. Retrieved 2022-02-09.
  6. [6]
    "Vortrag: To Protect And Infect, Part 2 - The militarization of the Internet". ccc.de. Archived from the original on 2021-11-02. Retrieved 2021-12-18.
  7. [7]
    Storm, Darlene (3 January 2014). "17 exploits the NSA uses to hack PCs, routers and servers for surveillance". Computerworld. Archived from the original on 2021-12-18. Retrieved 2021-12-18.
  8. [8]
    Hesseldahl, Arik. "Apple Denies Working with NSA on iPhone Backdoor". AllThingsD. Archived from the original on 2022-02-24. Retrieved 2021-12-18.
  9. [9]
    Robertson, Adi (2013-12-31). "Apple denies any knowledge of NSA's iPhone surveillance implant". The Verge. Archived from the original on 2021-12-18. Retrieved 2021-12-18.
  10. [10]
    Bent, Kristin; Spring, Tom (2013-12-30). "Dell, Cisco 'Deeply Concerned' Over NSA Backdoor Exploit Allegations". CRN. Archived from the original on 2022-04-07. Retrieved 2022-04-08.
  11. [11]
    Farrell, Stephen (July 2023). "Reflections on Ten Years Past The Snowden Revelations". Internet Engineering Task Force. Retrieved 2023-10-28.
  12. [12]
    Sanger, David E. (2018). The perfect weapon: war, sabotage, and fear in the cyber age (1st ed.). New York: Crown Publishing Group. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-451-49789-5. OCLC 1039082430.
  13. [13]
    Bamford, James (2016-08-22). "Commentary: Evidence points to another Snowden at the NSA". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2022-02-24. Retrieved 2022-02-09.
  14. [14]
    Pasick, Adam (4 July 2014). "The NSA may have another leaker on its hands". Quartz. Archived from the original on 23 October 2014. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  15. [15]
    "Interactive Graphic: The NSA's Spy Catalog". Der Spiegel. 2013-12-30. Archived from the original on 2014-01-02. Retrieved 2022-04-07.
  16. [16]
    Stöcker, Christian; Rosenbach, Marcel (25 November 2014). "Trojaner Regin ist ein Werkzeug von NSA und GCHQ". Spiegel Online (in German). Archived from the original on 28 November 2014. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
  17. [17]
    Hackett, Robert. "Hackers Have Allegedly Stolen NSA-Linked 'Cyber Weapons' and Are Auctioning Them Off". Fortune. Archived from the original on 2021-12-18. Retrieved 2021-12-18.
  18. [18]
    Hsu, Jeremy (2014-03-26). "U.S. Suspicions of China's Huawei Based Partly on NSA's Own Spy Tricks". IEEE Spectrum. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved 2021-12-21.
  19. [19]
    Lucy Teitler (November 17, 2014). "Let's Play NSA! The Hackers Open-Sourcing Top Secret Spy Tools". Vice Motherboard. Archived from the original on February 25, 2017. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  20. [20]
    Violet Blue (June 11, 2014). "NSA Playset invites hackers to 'play along with the NSA'". ZDNet. Archived from the original on June 19, 2017. Retrieved June 15, 2017.
  21. [21]
    Michael Ossmann (July 31, 2014). "The NSA Playset". Mossman's blog. Archived from the original on December 28, 2017. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  22. [22]
    Sean Gallagher (August 11, 2015). "The NSA Playset: Espionage tools for the rest of us". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on September 22, 2017. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  23. [23]
    "NSA Playset homepage". www.nsaplayset.org.

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