‘NSA installed backdoors on network hardware intended for export’ – update

The US intelligence agency NSA intercepted US-made hardware such as routers and servers and placed backdoors and other spy tools on the systems, which were destined for export. That claims journalist Glenn Greenwald based on Snowden documents.

Greenwald describes in The Guardian a 2010 document from the head of the NSA’s Access and Target Development division. The intelligence agency would routinely receive or intercept hardware such as routers, servers or other network equipment and then install spy tools on it. The hardware is then repackaged and forwarded to be shipped to foreign customers.

The document speaks of ‘a (literally!) hands-on Sigint approach’. An example is also given of hardware that signaled the NSA infrastructure after several months: “This callback gave us further access to the device and the ability to investigate the network.”

The claim is salient because the US has been pointing the finger of blame at China for some time, which is said to provide hardware from companies such as ZTE and Huawei with spy tools. Huawei has always denied the claims and the US has never officially substantiated the allegations.

It’s not the first time there have been reports of hardware manipulation by the NSA. Earlier, for example, the claim appeared that the service provides hard drives from Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung with backdoors.

Update 14.32: Glenn Greenwald has published the documents on his site.