Ars Technica: Servers, routers get “beacons” implanted at secret locations by NSA’s TAO team.
A document included in the trove of National Security Agency files released with Glenn Greenwald’s book No Place to Hide details how the agency’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit and other NSA employees intercept servers, routers, and other network gear being shipped to organizations targeted for surveillance and install covert implant firmware onto them before they’re delivered. These Trojan horse systems were described by an NSA manager as being “some of the most productive operations in TAO because they pre-position access points into hard target networks around the world.”
Online advertisements have become so dangerous that even the U.S. Intelligence Community blocks them.
As per the court documents, between June 11, 2015, and August 23, 2018, Petrill ordered 41 Cisco 3850 switches that were expected to be installed on the Horry County network.
From documents obtained by the ACLU, it turns out that the NSA illegally collected call records after it promised to stop collecting them.
