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96-479: On May 12, 2017, a computer worm in the form of ransomware , nicknamed WannaCry , used the EternalBlue exploit to attack computers using Windows that had not received the latest system updates removing the vulnerability. On June 27, 2017, the exploit was again used to help carry out the 2017 NotPetya cyberattack on more vulnerable computers. The exploit was also reported to have been used since March 2016 by

192-608: A director of central intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946. The agency's creation was authorized by the National Security Act of 1947 . Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is a domestic security service, the CIA has no law enforcement function and is mainly focused on intelligence gathering overseas, with only limited domestic intelligence collection . The CIA serves as

288-434: A kill switch and is not ransomware. Computer worm A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. It often uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. It will use this machine as a host to scan and infect other computers. When these new worm-invaded computers are controlled,

384-464: A CIA domestic surveillance program was uncovered that had not been subject to congressional oversight. When the CIA was created, its purpose was to create a clearinghouse for foreign policy intelligence and analysis, collecting, analyzing, evaluating, and disseminating foreign intelligence, and carrying out covert operations. As of 2013, the CIA had five priorities: The CIA has an executive office and five major directorates: The director of

480-534: A CIA paid mob led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini would spark what a U.S. embassy officer called "an almost spontaneous revolution" but Mosaddegh was protected by his new inner military circle, and the CIA had been unable to gain influence within the Iranian military. Their chosen man, former General Fazlollah Zahedi, had no troops to call on. After the failure of the first coup, Roosevelt paid demonstrators to pose as communists and deface public symbols associated with

576-466: A Presidential military order issued by President Roosevelt on June 13, 1942. The idea for a centralized intelligence organization was first proposed by General William J. Donovan, who envisioned an intelligence service that could operate globally to counter communist threats and provide crucial intelligence directly to the President. Donovan proposed the idea to President Roosevelt in 1944, suggesting

672-642: A Russian translator and Soviet spy. However, the CIA was successful in influencing the 1948 Italian election in favor of the Christian Democrats . The $ 200 million Exchange Stabilization Fund (equivalent to $ 2.5 billion in 2023), earmarked for the reconstruction of Europe, was used to pay wealthy Americans of Italian heritage. Cash was then distributed to Catholic Action , the Vatican's political arm, and directly to Italian politicians. This tactic of using its large fund to purchase elections

768-513: A keyboard. It could take days to kill a worm like that, and sometimes weeks." The second ever computer worm was devised to be an anti-virus software. Named Reaper , it was created by Ray Tomlinson to replicate itself across the ARPANET and delete the experimental Creeper program (the first computer worm, 1971). On November 2, 1988, Robert Tappan Morris , a Cornell University computer science graduate student, unleashed what became known as

864-457: A large number of vulnerabilities in the network. Any code designed to do more than spread the worm is typically referred to as the " payload ". Typical malicious payloads might delete files on a host system (e.g., the ExploreZip worm), encrypt files in a ransomware attack, or exfiltrate data such as confidential documents or passwords. Some worms may install a backdoor . This allows

960-524: A machine, then the majority of worms are unable to spread to it. If a vulnerability is disclosed before the security patch released by the vendor, a zero-day attack is possible. Users need to be wary of opening unexpected emails, and should not run attached files or programs, or visit web sites that are linked to such emails. However, as with the ILOVEYOU worm, and with the increased growth and efficiency of phishing attacks, it remains possible to trick

1056-721: A member of the National Front , was elected Iranian prime-minister. As prime minister, he nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company which his predecessor had supported. The nationalization of the British-funded Iranian oil industry, including the largest oil refinery in the world, was disastrous for Mosaddegh. A British naval embargo closed the British oil facilities, which Iran had no skilled workers to operate. In 1952, Mosaddegh resisted

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1152-558: A memoir published in February 2021, Perlroth clarified that EternalBlue had not been responsible for the Baltimore cyberattack, while criticizing others for pointing out "the technical detail that in this particular case, the ransomware attack had not spread with EternalBlue". Since 2012, four Baltimore City chief information officers have been fired or have resigned; two left while under investigation. Some security researchers said that

1248-461: A number of subversive operations in the country, all of which failed due to the presence of double agents. Millions of dollars were spent in these efforts. These included a team of young CIA officers airdropped into China who were ambushed, and CIA funds being used to set up a global heroin empire in Burma's Golden Triangle following a betrayal by another double agent. In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh ,

1344-523: A variety of activities such as the CIA's drone fleet and anti- Iranian nuclear program activities, accounts for $ 2.6 billion. There were numerous previous attempts to obtain general information about the budget. As a result, reports revealed that CIA's annual budget in Fiscal Year 1963 was $ 550 million (inflation-adjusted US$ 5.5 billion in 2024), and the overall intelligence budget in FY 1997

1440-477: A virus, the virus automatically resides in memory and waits to be triggered. There are also some worms that are combined with backdoor programs or Trojan horses , such as " Code Red ". Contagiousness Worms are more infectious than traditional viruses. They not only infect local computers, but also all servers and clients on the network based on the local computer. Worms can easily spread through shared folders , e-mails , malicious web pages, and servers with

1536-452: A worm is not limited by the host program, worms can take advantage of various operating system vulnerabilities to carry out active attacks. For example, the " Nimda " virus exploits vulnerabilities to attack. Complexity Some worms are combined with web page scripts, and are hidden in HTML pages using VBScript , ActiveX and other technologies. When a user accesses a webpage containing

1632-412: A worm with that tough a head or that long a tail!" "Then the answer dawned on him, and he almost laughed. Fluckner had resorted to one of the oldest tricks in the store and turned loose in the continental net a self-perpetuating tapeworm, probably headed by a denunciation group "borrowed" from a major corporation, which would shunt itself from one nexus to another every time his credit-code was punched into

1728-778: Is responsible for all matters pertaining to congressional interaction and oversight of US intelligence activities. It claims that it aims to: The CIA established its first training facility, the Office of Training and Education, in 1950. Following the end of the Cold War , the CIA's training budget was slashed, which had a negative effect on employee retention . In response, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet established CIA University in 2002. CIA University holds between 200 and 300 courses each year, training both new hires and experienced intelligence officers, as well as CIA support staff. The facility works in partnership with

1824-402: Is responsible for collecting foreign intelligence (mainly from clandestine HUMINT sources), and for covert action. The name reflects its role as the coordinator of human intelligence activities between other elements of the wider U.S. intelligence community with their HUMINT operations. This directorate was created in an attempt to end years of rivalry over influence, philosophy, and budget between

1920-475: The Departments of State and War . The division lasted only a few months. The first public mention of the "Central Intelligence Agency" appeared on a command-restructuring proposal presented by Jim Forrestal and Arthur Radford to the U.S. Senate Military Affairs Committee at the end of 1945. Army Intelligence agent Colonel Sidney Mashbir and Commander Ellis Zacharias worked together for four months at

2016-550: The Ethernet principles on their network of Xerox Alto computers. Similarly, the Nachi family of worms tried to download and install patches from Microsoft's website to fix vulnerabilities in the host system by exploiting those same vulnerabilities. In practice, although this may have made these systems more secure, it generated considerable network traffic, rebooted the machine in the course of patching it, and did its work without

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2112-674: The Morris worm , disrupting many computers then on the Internet, guessed at the time to be one tenth of all those connected. During the Morris appeal process, the U.S. Court of Appeals estimated the cost of removing the worm from each installation at between $ 200 and $ 53,000; this work prompted the formation of the CERT Coordination Center and Phage mailing list. Morris himself became the first person tried and convicted under

2208-682: The National Intelligence University , and includes the Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis , the Directorate of Analysis' component of the university. For later stage training of student operations officers, there is at least one classified training area at Camp Peary , near Williamsburg, Virginia . Students are selected, and their progress evaluated, in ways derived from the OSS, published as

2304-592: The National Security Council issued Directive 10/2 calling for covert action against the Soviet Union , and granting the authority to carry out covert operations against "hostile foreign states or groups" that could, if needed, be denied by the U.S. government. To this end, the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was created inside the new CIA. The OPC was unique; Frank Wisner , the head of

2400-1003: The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in India , the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Pakistan , the General Intelligence Service in Egypt , Mossad in Israel , and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) in South Korea . The CIA was instrumental in the establishment of intelligence services in several U.S. allied countries, including Germany's BND and Greece's EYP (then known as KYP). The closest links of

2496-599: The Soviet atomic bomb project . In particular, the agency failed to predict the Chinese entry into the Korean War with 300,000 troops. The famous double agent Kim Philby was the British liaison to American Central Intelligence. Through him, the CIA coordinated hundreds of airdrops inside the iron curtain, all compromised by Philby. Arlington Hall , the nerve center of CIA cryptanalysis, was compromised by Bill Weisband ,

2592-431: The U.S. military , including the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command , by providing it with information it gathers, receiving information from military intelligence organizations, and cooperating with field activities. The associate deputy director of the CIA is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the agency. Each branch of the agency has its own director. The Office of Military Affairs (OMA), subordinate to

2688-856: The United States Department of Defense (DOD) and the CIA. In spite of this, the Department of Defense announced in 2012 its intention to organize its own global clandestine intelligence service, the Defense Clandestine Service (DCS), under the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Contrary to some public and media misunderstanding, DCS is not a "new" intelligence agency but rather a consolidation, expansion and realignment of existing Defense HUMINT activities, which have been carried out by DIA for decades under various names, most recently as

2784-584: The United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA reports to the director of national intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the president and Cabinet . The agency's founding followed the dissolution of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) at the end of World War II by President Harry S. Truman , who created the Central Intelligence Group under the direction of

2880-589: The federal government of the United States tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and conducting covert action through its Directorate of Operations . The agency is headquartered in the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia . As a principal member of

2976-652: The fiscal year 2010, the CIA had the largest budget of all intelligence community agencies, exceeding prior estimates. The CIA's role has expanded since its creation, now including covert paramilitary operations. One of its largest divisions, the Information Operations Center (IOC), has shifted from counterterrorism to offensive cyber operations . The agency has been the subject of several controversies , including its use of torture , domestic wiretapping , propaganda , and alleged human rights violations and drug trafficking . In 2022,

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3072-454: The 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act . Conficker , a computer worm discovered in 2008 that primarily targeted Microsoft Windows operating systems, is a worm that employs three different spreading strategies: local probing, neighborhood probing, and global probing. This worm was considered a hybrid epidemic and affected millions of computers. The term "hybrid epidemic" is used because of the three separate methods it employed to spread, which

3168-577: The Agency's mission activities. It is the Agency's newest directorate. The Langley, Virginia -based office's mission is to streamline and integrate digital and cybersecurity capabilities into the CIA's espionage, counterintelligence, all-source analysis, open-source intelligence collection, and covert action operations. It provides operations personnel with tools and techniques to use in cyber operations. It works with information technology infrastructure and practices cyber tradecraft . This means retrofitting

3264-823: The Air Force. A DS&T organization analyzed imagery intelligence collected by the U-2 and reconnaissance satellites called the National Photointerpretation Center (NPIC), which had analysts from both the CIA and the military services. Subsequently, NPIC was transferred to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). The Directorate of Support has organizational and administrative functions to significant units including: The Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI) focuses on accelerating innovation across

3360-432: The CIA for cyberwarfare . DDI officers help accelerate the integration of innovative methods and tools to enhance the CIA's cyber and digital capabilities on a global scale and ultimately help safeguard the United States. They also apply technical expertise to exploit clandestine and publicly available information (also known as open-source data ) using specialized methodologies and digital tools to plan, initiate and support

3456-453: The CIA would corroborate Hart's findings. The CIA's station in Seoul had 200 officers, but not a single speaker of Korean . Hart reported to Washington that Seoul station was hopeless, and could not be salvaged. Loftus Becker, deputy director of intelligence, was sent personally to tell Hart that the CIA had to keep the station open to save face. Becker returned to Washington, D.C., pronouncing

3552-575: The CIA's computer network operations budget for fiscal year 2013 was $ 685.4 million. The NSA's budget was roughly $ 1 billion at the time. Rep. Adam Schiff , the California Democrat who served as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee , endorsed the reorganization. "The director has challenged his workforce, the rest of the intelligence community, and the nation to consider how we conduct

3648-1113: The CIA. The role and functions of the CIA are roughly equivalent to those of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in Germany , MI6 in the United Kingdom , the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) in Australia , the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) in France , the Foreign Intelligence Service in Russia , the Ministry of State Security (MSS) in China ,

3744-601: The Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) is appointed by the president with Senate confirmation and reports directly to the director of national intelligence (DNI); in practice, the CIA director interfaces with the director of national intelligence (DNI), Congress , and the White House , while the deputy director (DD/CIA) is the internal executive of the CIA and the chief operating officer (COO/CIA), known as executive director until 2017, leads

3840-786: The Chinese hacking group Buckeye (APT3) , after they likely found and re-purposed the software, as well as reported to have been used as part of the Retefe banking trojan since at least September 5, 2017. EternalBlue exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft 's implementation of the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. This vulnerability is denoted by entry CVE - 2017-0144 in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) catalog. The vulnerability exists because

3936-508: The Defense Human Intelligence Service. This Directorate is known to be organized by geographic regions and issues, but its precise organization is classified. The Directorate of Science & Technology was established to research, create, and manage technical collection disciplines and equipment. Many of its innovations were transferred to other intelligence organizations, or, as they became more overt, to

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4032-622: The EternalBlue exploit code on April 14, 2017, along with several other hacking tools from the NSA. Many Windows users had not installed the Microsoft patches when, on May 12, 2017, the WannaCry ransomware attack started to use the EternalBlue vulnerability to spread itself. The next day (May 13, 2017), Microsoft released emergency security patches for the unsupported Windows XP , Windows 8 , and Windows Server 2003 . In February 2018, EternalBlue

4128-732: The German Bundesnachrichtendienst is keeping contact to the CIA office in Wiesbaden . The success of the British Commandos during World War II prompted U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to authorize the creation of an intelligence service modeled after the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), and Special Operations Executive . This led to the creation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) by

4224-538: The Internet randomly, looking for vulnerable hosts to infect. In addition, machine learning techniques can be used to detect new worms, by analyzing the behavior of the suspected computer. A helpful worm or anti-worm is a worm designed to do something that its author feels is helpful, though not necessarily with the permission of the executing computer's owner. Beginning with the first research into worms at Xerox PARC , there have been attempts to create useful worms. Those worms allowed John Shoch and Jon Hupp to test

4320-501: The NSA and CIA for stockpiling vulnerabilities rather than disclosing them, writing that "an equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the U.S. military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen". The stockpiling strategy prevented Microsoft from knowing of (and subsequently patching) this bug, and presumably other hidden bugs. However several commentators, including Alex Abdo of Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute, have criticised Microsoft for shifting

4416-678: The OPC, answered not to the CIA Director , but to the secretaries of defense, state, and the NSC. The OPC's actions were a secret even from the head of the CIA. Most CIA stations had two station chiefs, one working for the OSO, and one working for the OPC. With the agency unable to provide sufficient intelligence about the Soviet takeovers of Romania and Czechoslovakia , the Soviet blockade of Berlin , and

4512-525: The OSO was tasked with spying and subversion overseas with a budget of $ 15 million (equivalent to $ 190 million in 2023), the largesse of a small number of patrons in Congress. Vandenberg's goals were much like the ones set out by his predecessor: finding out "everything about the Soviet forces in Eastern and Central Europe – their movements, their capabilities, and their intentions." On June 18, 1948,

4608-424: The Office of Reports and Estimates, which drew its reports from a daily take of State Department telegrams, military dispatches, and other public documents. The CIA still lacked its intelligence-gathering abilities. On August 21, 1950, shortly after, Truman announced Walter Bedell Smith as the new Director of the CIA. The change in leadership took place shortly after the start of the Korean War in South Korea , as

4704-430: The SMB version 1 (SMBv1) server in various versions of Microsoft Windows mishandles specially crafted packets from remote attackers, allowing them to remotely execute code on the target computer. The NSA did not alert Microsoft about the vulnerabilities, and held on to it for more than five years before the breach forced its hand. The agency then warned Microsoft after learning about EternalBlue's possible theft, allowing

4800-429: The Shah to exercise his constitutional right to dismiss Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh launched a military coup , and the Shah fled the country. Under CIA Director Allen Dulles , Operation Ajax was put into motion. Its goal was to overthrow Mossadegh with military support from General Fazlollah Zahedi and install a pro-western regime headed by the Shah of Iran. Kermit Roosevelt Jr. oversaw the operation in Iran. On August 16,

4896-447: The U.S. intelligence community to other foreign intelligence agencies are to Anglophone countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Special communications signals that intelligence-related messages can be shared with these four countries. An indication of the United States' close operational cooperation is the creation of a new message distribution label within the main U.S. military communications network. Previously,

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4992-413: The US. Thus the two areas of responsibility for the CIA were covert action and covert intelligence. One of the main targets for intelligence gathering was the Soviet Union , which had also been a priority of the CIA's predecessors. U.S. Air Force General Hoyt Vandenberg , the CIG's second director, created the Office of Special Operations (OSO) and the Office of Reports and Estimates (ORE). Initially,

5088-480: The associate deputy director, manages the relationship between the CIA and the Unified Combatant Commands , who produce and deliver regional and operational intelligence and consume national intelligence produced by the CIA. The Directorate of Analysis , through much of its history known as the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), is tasked with helping "the President and other policymakers make informed decisions about our country's national security" by looking "at all

5184-420: The available information on an issue and organiz[ing] it for policymakers". The directorate has four regional analytic groups, six groups for transnational issues, and three that focus on policy, collection, and staff support. There are regional analytical offices covering the Near East and South Asia , Russia , and Europe; and the Asia–Pacific , Latin America , and Africa . The Directorate of Operations

5280-419: The blame to the NSA, arguing that it should be held responsible for releasing a defective product in the same way a car manufacturer might be. The company was faulted for initially restricting the release of its EternalBlue patch to recent Windows users and customers of its $ 1,000 per device Extended Support contracts, a move that left organisations such the UK's NHS vulnerable to the WannaCry attack. A month after

5376-405: The book Assessment of Men, Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services . Additional mission training is conducted at Harvey Point , North Carolina . The primary training facility for the Office of Communications is Warrenton Training Center , located near Warrenton, Virginia . The facility was established in 1951 and has been used by the CIA since at least 1955. Details of

5472-457: The business of intelligence in a world that is profoundly different from 1947 when the CIA was founded," Schiff said. The Office of Congressional Affairs ( OCA ) serves as the liaison between the CIA and the US Congress . The OCA states that it aims to ensures that Congress is fully and currently informed of intelligence activities. The office is the CIA's primary interface with Congressional oversight committees, leadership, and members. It

5568-536: The company to prepare a software patch issued in March 2017, after delaying its regular release of security patches in February 2017. On Tuesday , March 14, 2017, Microsoft issued security bulletin MS17-010, which detailed the flaw and announced that patches had been released for all Windows versions that were currently supported at that time, these being Windows Vista , Windows 7 , Windows 8.1 , Windows 10 , Windows Server 2008 , Windows Server 2012 , and Windows Server 2016 . The Shadow Brokers publicly released

5664-463: The computer to be remotely controlled by the worm author as a " zombie ". Networks of such machines are often referred to as botnets and are very commonly used for a range of malicious purposes, including sending spam or performing DoS attacks. Some special worms attack industrial systems in a targeted manner. Stuxnet was primarily transmitted through LANs and infected thumb-drives, as its targets were never connected to untrusted networks, like

5760-436: The consent of the computer's owner or user. Regardless of their payload or their writers' intentions, security experts regard all worms as malware . Another example of this approach is Roku OS patching a bug allowing for Roku OS to be rooted via an update to their screensaver channels, which the screensaver would attempt to connect to the telnet and patch the device. One study proposed the first computer worm that operates on

5856-420: The creation of a "Central Intelligence Service" that would continue peacetime operations similar to those of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which he led during World War II. Upon President Roosevelt's death, the new president Harry Truman inherited a presidency largely uninformed about key wartime projects and global intelligence activities. Truman's initial view of the proposed central intelligence agency

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5952-421: The day-to-day work as the third-highest post of the CIA. The deputy director is formally appointed by the director without Senate confirmation, but as the president's opinion plays a great role in the decision, the deputy director is generally considered a political position, making the chief operating officer the most senior non-political position for CIA career officers. The Executive Office also supports

6048-410: The direction of Fleet Admiral Joseph Ernest King , and prepared the first draft and implementing directives for the creation of what would become the Central Intelligence Agency. Despite opposition from the military establishment, the State Department , and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Truman established the National Intelligence Authority in January 1946. Its operational extension

6144-508: The embedded programmable logic controllers of industrial machines. Although these systems operate independently from the network, if the operator inserts a virus-infected drive into the system's USB interface, the virus will be able to gain control of the system without any other operational requirements or prompts. Worms spread by exploiting vulnerabilities in operating systems. Vendors with security problems supply regular security updates (see " Patch Tuesday "), and if these are installed to

6240-551: The end-user into running malicious code. Anti-virus and anti-spyware software are helpful, but must be kept up-to-date with new pattern files at least every few days. The use of a firewall is also recommended. Users can minimize the threat posed by worms by keeping their computers' operating system and other software up to date, avoiding opening unrecognized or unexpected emails and running firewall and antivirus software. Mitigation techniques include: Infections can sometimes be detected by their behavior - typically scanning

6336-438: The fiscal 2013 figure is $ 52.6 billion. According to the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures , the CIA's fiscal 2013 budget is $ 14.7 billion, 28% of the total and almost 50% more than the budget of the National Security Agency. CIA's HUMINT budget is $ 2.3 billion, the SIGINT budget is $ 1.7 billion, and spending for security and logistics of CIA missions is $ 2.5 billion. "Covert action programs," including

6432-416: The information they sent. In September 1952 Haney was replaced by John Limond Hart, a Europe veteran with a vivid memory for bitter experiences of misinformation. Hart was suspicious of the parade of successes reported by Tofte and Haney and launched an investigation which determined that the entirety of the information supplied by the Korean sources was false or misleading. After the war, internal reviews by

6528-524: The internet. This virus can destroy the core production control computer software used by chemical, power generation and power transmission companies in various countries around the world - in Stuxnet's case, Iran, Indonesia and India were hardest hit - it was used to "issue orders" to other equipment in the factory, and to hide those commands from being detected. Stuxnet used multiple vulnerabilities and four different zero-day exploits (e.g.: [1] ) in Windows systems and Siemens SIMATICWinCC systems to attack

6624-456: The lack of a clear warning to the President and NSC about the imminent North Korean invasion was seen as a grave failure of intelligence. The CIA had different demands placed on it by the various bodies overseeing it. Truman wanted a centralized group to organize the information that reached him. The Department of Defense wanted military intelligence and covert action, and the State Department wanted to create global political change favorable to

6720-435: The marking of NOFORN (i.e., No Foreign Nationals) required the originator to specify which, if any, non-U.S. countries could receive the information. A new handling caveat, USA/AUS/CAN/GBR/NZL Five Eyes , used primarily on intelligence messages, gives an easier way to indicate that the material can be shared with Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The task of the division called " Verbindungsstelle 61 " of

6816-563: The massive impact of WannaCry , both NotPetya and BadRabbit caused over $ 1 billion worth of damages in over 65 countries, using EternalBlue as either an initial compromise vector or as a method of lateral movement. In May 2019, the city of Baltimore struggled with a cyberattack by digital extortionists; the attack froze thousands of computers, shut down email and disrupted real estate sales, water bills, health alerts and many other services. Nicole Perlroth, writing for The New York Times , initially attributed this attack to EternalBlue; in

6912-540: The military services. The development of the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, for instance, was done in cooperation with the United States Air Force . The U-2's original mission was clandestine imagery intelligence over denied areas such as the Soviet Union . It was subsequently provided with signals intelligence and measurement and signature intelligence capabilities and is now operated by

7008-623: The national manager for HUMINT, coordinating activities across the IC. It also carries out covert action at the behest of the president . The CIA exerts foreign political influence through its paramilitary operations units, including its Special Activities Center . The CIA was instrumental in establishing intelligence services in many countries, such as Germany 's Federal Intelligence Service . It has also provided support to several foreign political groups and governments, including planning, coordinating, training in torture , and technical support. It

7104-421: The network, even if only by consuming bandwidth , whereas viruses almost always corrupt or modify files on a targeted computer. Many worms are designed only to spread, and do not attempt to change the systems they pass through. However, as the Morris worm and Mydoom showed, even these "payload-free" worms can cause major disruption by increasing network traffic and other unintended effects. The term "worm"

7200-472: The non-military National Intelligence Program, including $ 4.8 billion for the CIA. After the Marshall Plan was approved, appropriating $ 13.7 billion over five years, 5% of those funds or $ 685 million were secretly made available to the CIA. A portion of the enormous M-fund, established by the U.S. government during the post-war period for reconstruction of Japan, was secretly steered to

7296-566: The overall United States intelligence budget are classified. Under the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, the Director of Central Intelligence is the only federal government employee who can spend "un-vouchered" government money . The government showed its 1997 budget was $ 26.6 billion for the fiscal year. The government has disclosed a total figure for all non-military intelligence spending since 2007;

7392-607: The patch was first released, Microsoft took the rare step of making it available for free to users of all vulnerable Windows editions dating back to Windows XP. EternalRocks or MicroBotMassiveNet is a computer worm that infects Microsoft Windows. It uses seven exploits developed by the NSA. Comparatively, the WannaCry ransomware program that infected 230,000 computers in May 2017 only uses two NSA exploits, so researchers believe EternalRocks to be significantly more dangerous. The worm

7488-454: The performance of massive scale ephemeral artworks. It turns the infected computers into nodes that contribute to the artwork. Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA / ˌ s iː . aɪ ˈ eɪ / ), known informally as the Agency , metonymously as Langley and historically as the Company , is a civilian foreign intelligence service of

7584-450: The responsibility for the Baltimore breach lay with the city for not updating their computers. Security consultant Rob Graham wrote in a tweet: "If an organization has substantial numbers of Windows machines that have gone 2 years without patches, then that’s squarely the fault of the organization, not EternalBlue." After the WannaCry attack, Microsoft took "first responsibility to address these issues", but criticized government agencies like

7680-708: The royal refusal to approve his Minister of War and resigned in protest. The National Front took to the streets in protest. Fearing a loss of control, the military pulled its troops back five days later, and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi gave in to Mosaddegh's demands. Mosaddegh quickly replaced military leaders loyal to the Shah with those loyal to him, giving him personal control over the military. Given six months of emergency powers, Mosaddegh unilaterally passed legislation. When that six months expired, his powers were extended for another year. In 1953, Mossadegh dismissed parliament and assumed dictatorial powers. This power grab triggered

7776-509: The same deficiencies exploited by the Blaster worm , Welchia infected computers and automatically began downloading Microsoft security updates for Windows without the users' consent. Welchia automatically reboots the computers it infects after installing the updates. One of these updates was the patch that fixed the exploit. Other examples of helpful worms are "Den_Zuko", "Cheeze", "CodeGreen", and "Millenium". Art worms support artists in

7872-527: The second layer of the OSI model (Data link Layer), utilizing topology information such as Content-addressable memory (CAM) tables and Spanning Tree information stored in switches to propagate and probe for vulnerable nodes until the enterprise network is covered. Anti-worms have been used to combat the effects of the Code Red , Blaster , and Santy worms. Welchia is an example of a helpful worm. Utilizing

7968-409: The situation to be "hopeless," and that, after touring the CIA's Far East operations, the CIA's ability to gather intelligence in the far east was "almost negligible". He then resigned. Air Force Colonel James Kallis stated that CIA director Allen Dulles continued to praise the CIA's Korean force, despite knowing that they were under enemy control. When China entered the war in 1950, the CIA attempted

8064-476: The technical and human-based operations of the CIA. Before the establishment of the new digital directorate, offensive cyber operations were undertaken by the CIA's Information Operations Center. Little is known about how the office specifically functions or if it deploys offensive cyber capabilities. The directorate had been covertly operating since approximately March 2015 but formally began operations on October 1, 2015. According to classified budget documents,

8160-530: The use of federal funds. The act also exempted the CIA from having to disclose its "organization, functions, officials, titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed," and created the program "PL-110" to handle defectors and other "essential aliens" who fell outside normal immigration procedures. At the outset of the Korean War , the CIA still only had a few thousand employees, around one thousand of whom worked in analysis. Intelligence primarily came from

8256-409: The worm will continue to scan and infect other computers using these computers as hosts, and this behaviour will continue. Computer worms use recursive methods to copy themselves without host programs and distribute themselves based on exploiting the advantages of exponential growth , thus controlling and infecting more and more computers in a short time. Worms almost always cause at least some harm to

8352-410: Was US$ 26.6 billion (inflation-adjusted US$ 50.5 billion in 2024). There have been accidental disclosures; for instance, Mary Margaret Graham , a former CIA official and deputy director of national intelligence for collection in 2005, said that the annual intelligence budget was $ 44 billion, and in 1994 Congress accidentally published a budget of $ 43.4 billion (in 2012 dollars) in 1994 for

8448-489: Was discovered through code analysis. Independence Computer viruses generally require a host program. The virus writes its own code into the host program. When the program runs, the written virus program is executed first, causing infection and damage. A worm does not need a host program, as it is an independent program or code chunk. Therefore, it is not restricted by the host program , but can run independently and actively carry out attacks. Exploit attacks Because

8544-438: Was discovered via a honeypot . EternalRocks first installs Tor , a private network that conceals Internet activity, to access its hidden servers. After a brief 24 hour " incubation period ", the server then responds to the malware request by downloading and self-replicating on the " host " machine. The malware even names itself WannaCry to avoid detection from security researchers. Unlike WannaCry, EternalRocks does not possess

8640-469: Was first used in this sense in John Brunner 's 1975 novel, The Shockwave Rider . In the novel, Nichlas Haflinger designs and sets off a data-gathering worm in an act of revenge against the powerful men who run a national electronic information web that induces mass conformity. "You have the biggest-ever worm loose in the net, and it automatically sabotages any attempt to monitor it. There's never been

8736-412: Was frequently repeated in the subsequent years. At the beginning of the Korean War , CIA officer Hans Tofte claimed to have turned a thousand North Korean expatriates into a guerrilla force tasked with infiltration, guerrilla warfare, and pilot rescue. In 1952 the CIA sent 1,500 more expatriate agents north. Seoul station chief Albert Haney would openly celebrate the capabilities of those agents and

8832-562: Was involved in many regime changes and carrying out terrorist attacks and planned assassinations of foreign leaders. Since 2004, the CIA is organized under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Despite having had some of its powers transferred to the DNI, the CIA has grown in size following the September 11 attacks . In 2013, The Washington Post reported that in

8928-595: Was known as the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), which was the direct predecessor of the CIA. The Central Intelligence Agency was created on July 26, 1947, when President Truman signed the National Security Act into law. A major impetus for the creation of the agency was growing tensions with the USSR following the end of World War II . Lawrence Houston, head counsel of the SSU , CIG, and, later CIA,

9024-513: Was ported to all Windows operating systems since Windows 2000 by RiskSense security researcher Sean Dillon. EternalChampion and EternalRomance , two other exploits originally developed by the NSA and leaked by The Shadow Brokers , were also ported at the same event. They were made available as open sourced Metasploit modules. At the end of 2018, millions of systems were still vulnerable to EternalBlue. This has led to millions of dollars in damages due primarily to ransomware worms. Following

9120-522: Was principal draftsman of the National Security Act of 1947 , which dissolved the NIA and the CIG, and established both the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1949, Houston helped to draft the Central Intelligence Agency Act ( Pub. L.   81–110 ), which authorized the agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures, and exempted it from most limitations on

9216-481: Was that of a simple information gathering entity that would function more as a global news service rather than a spy network. His vision starkly contrasted with Donovan's, which focused on avoiding the creation of an American version of the Gestapo . On September 20, 1945, shortly after the end of World War II, Truman signed an executive order dissolving the OSS. By October 1945 its functions had been divided between

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