Every hacking technique leaves a “fingerprint” which, when collated, can be used to connect different attacks and tie them to the same culprit.

The CIA’s Remote Development Branch (RDB)’s Umbrage sub-group collects an archive of hacking exploits created by other actors, like Russia and other hackers, and leaves this false trace for others to detect.

#Umbrage, a group within the CIA's Remote Devices Branch, collects stolen malware & uses it to hide its own hacking fingerprints #Vault7 pic.twitter.com/bgsUiygB8w

— Christine Maguire (@_ChrisMaguire) March 7, 2017

Umbrage captures and collects keyloggers, passwords, webcam captures, data destruction, persistence, privilege escalation, stealth, anti-virus (PSP) avoidance and survey techniques.

This allows the CIA to not only steal other’s hack techniques, but falsely apportion blame to those actors.

CIA uses techniques to make cyber attacks look like they originated from enemy state. It turns DNC/Russia hack allegation by CIA into a JOKE

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) March 7, 2017

Hacking Team

An Umbrage document shows how the agency mined information from a breach of Italian “offensive security” vendor Hacking Team, that boasts governmental and law enforcement clients.

Some 400GB of data including “browser credential stealing” and “six different zero-day exploits” was released in the breach, which Umbrage studied and added to its repository.

DNC hack

http://twitter.com/Rictracee/status/839125056672382976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Who needs enemies like Russia when you have got friends like the CIA and the Deep State. Read #Vault7 https://t.co/ONuPMaZ7Hc

— Hotties For Trump (@hottiesfortrump) March 7, 2017

In the case of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hack, which reports have connected to Russia, the fingerprints used to link blame to Russian hackers may have been manipulated.

Crowdstrike, a private security firm linked to the Atlantic Council, found the hackers who accessed the DNC emails (and those of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta) left “clues,” which Crowdstrike attributed to Russian hackers.

Malware dug into the DNC computers was found to be programmed to communicate with IP addresses associated with Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear – hacking groups that Crowdstrike says are controlled by Russian intelligence.

Metadata found in a file contained modifications by a user using Cyrillic text and a codename Felix Edmundovich.

#Vault7 – there goes the whole CIA narrative about Russian hacking of the 2016 election. https://t.co/VTikpCut5P pic.twitter.com/2gkY9CFD88

— john (@jhal9000) March 7, 2017

While the documents released don’t tie Crowdstrike to the CIA’s Umbrage program, the data demonstrates how easily fingerprints can be manipulated, and how the CIA’s vast collection of existing malware can be employed to disguise its own actions.

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http://www.rt.com/viral/379779-vault7-cia-hacking-fingerprints/