A recent report submitted by Russian security company Kaspersky Labs reveals the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) plants spyware software on some hard drives manufactured by big tech companies.
The Moscow-based security company said its research revealed that some of the hard drives manufactured by Western Digital, Toshiba and Seagate contain spying software that enables the agency to collect information on computers all over the world. This discovery was just one of the many U.S. spying activities exposed by Kaspersky.
Kaspersky added that computers in more than 30 countries were affected,. Most of the the infected hardware were reported in Iran, closely followed by Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China, according to Reuters. The list added war-torn Syria, Algeria and Yemen.
Another report from Reuters said a former NSA employee confirmed the analysis presented by Kaspersky were correct. Another intelligence operative who formerly worked for the NSA said the agency has found the Holy Grail in secretly integrating spyware into hard drives. This intelligence program is as valued as the Stuxnet worm discovered in 2010.
The infection doesn't only affect hard drives but other storage devices like CD's, DVD's and USB Flash drives. The malware is also not installed into the regular storage space. This makes it extremely difficult to be detected and removed, according to Engadget.
Kaspersky didn't openly name who is behind the unsanctioned spy activities but vaguely pointed a finger at the U.S. government.
The NSA didn't comment on the issue. This latest exposé will open up a lot of question as to how secure the devices are that people use at home.