WaPo: WikiLeaks says it has obtained trove of CIA hacking tools

From the Washington Post:

WikiLeaks, which claimed to have gotten the files from a current or former CIA contractor, touted the trove as comparable in scale and significance to the collection of National Security Agency documents exposed by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. 

But while the Snowden files revealed massive surveillance programs that gathered data on millions of Americans, the CIA documents posted so far by WikiLeaks appear mainly to unmask hacking methods that many experts already assumed the agency had developed. 

U.S. intelligence officials and experts said details contained in the newly released documents suggest that they are legitimate, although that could not be independently verified, raising new worries about the U.S. government’s ability to safeguard its secrets in an era of cascading leaks of classified data. 

The files mention pieces of malware with names like “Assassin” and “Medusa” that seem drawn from a spy film, describing tools that the CIA uses to steal data from iPhones, seize control of Microsoft-powered computers or even make Internet-connected Samsung television sets secretly function as microphones. 

The release of so many sensitive files appeared to catch the CIA, the White House and other government entities off-guard. A CIA spokesman would say only that “we do not comment on the authenticity of purported intelligence documents.”