Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, said the group will work with technology companies to close gaps identified in thousands of Central Intelligence Agency documents it published this week as well as in additional material it has yet to disclose.
Assange, speaking Thursday in a webcast, said he's interested in helping better secure communications technology after this week's disclosure of more than 8,000 documents highlighted apparent vulnerabilities in smartphones, televisions and software built by companies including Apple, Google, and Samsung . Assange claimed the disclosures show that the CIA has "lost control" of its "entire cyberweapons arsenal."
The webcast came on the same day that former UKIP leader and Donald Trump ally Nigel Farage visited Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Buzzfeed UK photographed Mr Farage leaving the embassy on Thursday. Mr Farage would not confirm he visited the WikiLeaks founder and gave a bizarre quote, saying he couldn't remember what he had been doing inside the embassy for the past 40 minutes. The Independent later cited a source close to Mr Farage confirming the two had met.
Mr Farage is an ally of the US president and has visited him in America several times. Mr Trump is under fierce political pressure over his suspected links to Russia.
US authorities say the Russians hacked emails belonging to Mr Trump's political rivals at the Democratic National Convention and chair John Podesta. They were later published by WikiLeaks.
In his webcast, Assange, who didn't name the companies WikiLeaks seeks to work with, said the leaks show how difficult it is for any person or organisation to maintain control of cyber tools.
"If you build them, eventually you will lose them," Assange said. "They are just information. They must be used on the internet."
WikiLeaks said on March 7 that it obtained portions of the CIA's hacking archive and had several hundred million lines of code. The group said it withheld releasing "armed" cyberweapons until "a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA's program and how such 'weapons' should analysed, disarmed and published."
Intercepting Messages
The trove, if legitimate, discloses malware, viruses and security vulnerabilities known as "zero days." It also reveals that the agency has the ability to break into individual devices and intercept messages before they can be encrypted by applications such as Facebook Inc.'s WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and Confide.
The CIA, while not commenting on the authenticity of the documents, said Wednesday that "the American public should be deeply troubled by any WikiLeaks disclosure designed to damage the Intelligence Community's ability to protect America against terrorists and other adversaries."
Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska said Thursday that Assange should be imprisoned for life. "He's an enemy of the American people and an ally to Vladimir Putin," Mr Sasse said in a statement. "Mr Assange has dedicated his life's work to endangering innocent lives, abetting despots, and stoking a crisis of confidence in the West."
Assange said during the webcast that he has never been paid by the Russian government or RT, a Russian international television network funded by the Moscow.
Assange, 45, is wanted by the US for exposing classified material and by Sweden over allegations of rape and sexual assault.
Updates Urged
Companies including Apple and Google have said many of the vulnerabilities described in the files disclosed by WikiLeaks are old and have already been patched, and that they're working to fix the remaining ones.
"Our products and software are designed to quickly get security updates into the hands of our customers, with nearly 80 per cent of users running the latest version," Apple said in a statement similar to those from other technology companies. "We always urge customers to download the latest iOS to make sure they have the most recent security updates."
Although President Donald Trump said "I love WikiLeaks" during last year's campaign - when it was posting emails stolen from rival Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman - White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters this week that there's a "massive, massive difference" between the two examples. Without confirming the WikiLeaks documents were genuine, he said, "This should be a major concern to people in terms of the leaks that are coming out, and the desire to get to the bottom of them."
Bloomberg, Fairfax Media