The National Security Agency, or NSA for short, has not been in the good books of many a person simply because of what they have done in the past, as well as alluded to have done. This latest bit of information is not going to earn them any kind of endearments, either, as it has been reported that the NSA posed as Facebook at times using automated systems in order to infect user computers with malware for the past four years.
The NSA has been making use of a program that has been give the codename TURBINE in order to contaminate computers and networks with malware “implants” which are capable of allowing them to “spy” on users, at least according to The Intercept. The Intercept did cite documents which were furnished by famous whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Apparently, the estimated number of these implants which have been deployed worldwide stand between 85,000 and 100,000 to date. Performing what is called a “man-on-the-side” attack, it will trick users’ computers into thinking that they were actually accessing the real Facebook server. Once bitten, the NSA was able to hack into the user’s computer, picking up data from their hard drive. Facebook has disavowed themselves from any knowledge of the NSA”s TURBINE program, but has cited that this trick by the NSA is no longer possible, although the same cannot be said for other social networks.