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December, 2019
10 Minutes
Research

Overview

Technical Use Controls

Abstract

In March 2017, WikiLeaks published the 'Vault 7' series of documents detailing 'cyber' activities and capabilities of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Among a wide variety of implant & exploit frameworks the final documents released as part of the dump, related to a project code-named 'Protego', stood out as unusual due to describing a piece of missile control technology rather than CNO capabilities. As a result, these documents have received comparatively little attention from the media and security researchers.

In this talk we will take a look at the 'Vault 7' Protego documents, which have received very little attention so far, and challenge the assertion that Protego was a 'suspected assassination module for [a] GPS guided missile system ... used on-board Pratt & Whitney aircraft' based on system block diagrams, build instructions and a few interesting news items. In addition, we will discuss hypothetical weaknesses in systems like it.

Publications

Date

Type

Title

Venue

28-12-2019

Conference talk

36C3

Conference recordings