This placement ensures that they can react faster than other websites can. As part of the Turmoil system, the NSA places secret servers, codenamed Quantum, at key places on the Internet backbone. To trick targets into visiting a FoxAcid server, the NSA relies on its secret partnerships with US telecoms companies. According to another document, the vulnerability exploited by EgotisticalGiraffe was inadvertently fixed when Mozilla removed the E4X library with the vulnerability, and when Tor added that Firefox version into the Tor browser bundle, but NSA were confident that they would be able to find a replacement Firefox exploit that worked against version 17.0 ESR. This vulnerability exists in Firefox 11.0-16.0.2, as well as Firefox 10.0 ESR-the Firefox version used until recently in the Tor browser bundle.
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Even so, the NSA uses a series of native Firefox vulnerabilities to attack users of the Tor browser bundle.Īccording to the training presentation provided by Snowden, EgotisticalGiraffe exploits a type confusion vulnerability in E4X, which is an XML extension for JavaScript. Tor users often turn off vulnerable services like scripts and Flash when using Tor, making it difficult to target those services. The NSA attacks we found individually target Tor users by exploiting vulnerabilities in their Firefox browsers, and not the Tor application directly. Tor is a well-designed and robust anonymity tool, and successfully attacking it is difficult. Once the computer is successfully attacked, it secretly calls back to a FoxAcid server, which then performs additional attacks on the target computer to ensure that it remains compromised long-term, and continues to provide eavesdropping information back to the NSA.
FoxAcid is an NSA system designed to act as a matchmaker between potential targets and attacks developed by the NSA, giving the agency opportunity to launch prepared attacks against their systems. On the other hand, the anonymity provided by Tor makes it impossible for the NSA to know who the user is, or whether or not the user is in the US.Īfter identifying an individual Tor user on the Internet, the NSA uses its network of secret Internet servers to redirect those users to another set of secret Internet servers, with the codename FoxAcid, to infect the user’s computer. The very feature that makes Tor a powerful anonymity service, and the fact that all Tor users look alike on the Internet, makes it easy to differentiate Tor users from other web users.
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Last month, Brazilian TV news show Fantastico showed screenshots of an NSA tool that had the ability to identify Tor users by monitoring Internet traffic. Using powerful data analysis tools with codenames such as Turbulence, Turmoil and Tumult, the NSA automatically sifts through the enormous amount of Internet traffic that it sees, looking for Tor connections. These fingerprints are loaded into NSA database systems like XKeyscore, a bespoke collection and analysis tool that NSA boasts allows its analysts to see “almost everything” a target does on the Internet. The NSA creates “fingerprints” that detect HTTP requests from the Tor network to particular servers. This is done via the agency’s partnership with US telecoms firms under programs codenamed Stormbrew, Fairview, Oakstar and Blarney. To accomplish this, the NSA relies on its vast capability to monitor large parts of the Internet. The first step of this process is finding Tor users. The NSA refers to these capabilities as CNE, or computer network exploitation. The trick identifies Tor users on the Internet and then executes an attack against their Firefox web browser.
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The majority of NSA employees work in SID, which is tasked with collecting data from communications systems around the world.Īccording to a top-secret NSA presentation provided by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, one successful technique the NSA has developed involves exploiting the Tor browser bundle, a collection of programs designed to make it easy for people to install and use the software. The work of attacking Tor is done by the NSA‘s application vulnerabilities branch, which is part of the systems intelligence directorate, or SID. The online anonymity network Tor is a high-priority target for the National Security Agency. How the NSA Attacks Tor/Firefox Users With QUANTUM and FOXACID
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