The US military has gained access to a powerful Internet surveillance tool that covers more than 90 percent of global web traffic and in some cases provides access to email data, browsing history and a host of other information, such as sensitive cookies, according to contract documents which acquired Motherboard.
Additionally, Sen. Ron Wyden reported that a whistleblower contacted his office about the alleged warrantless use and purchase of this data by NCIS, a policy service of law enforcement belonging to the Navy, after filing a complaint through the official procedureof a report to the Department of Defense, according to a copy of the letter Wyden's office provided to Motherboard.
The documents reveal the sale and use of a previously little-known surveillance technology powered by data purchases from the private sector. The tool, called Augury, was developed by cyber security company Team Cymru and collects a huge amount of data that it makes available to government and corporate clients as a paid service.
In the private sector, cyber analystsbetter safetyand use it to monitor hacker activity or perform cyber attacks. In the government sector, analysts can do the same. Authorities dealing with criminal investigations also have this service.
The military services do not mention the cases of use of the tool. However, the sale of the tool to the military shows us that the military also gained access. It should be noted here that no one knows how Team Cymru acquired the data and then sells it as a business, which has worried many sources in the cyber security industry.
"The data includes data from more than 550 collection points worldwide, from Europe, the Middle East, North/South America, Africa and Asia, and is updated with at least 100 billion new records every day," reports the Augury platform a US government procurement file reviewed by Motherboard. He adds that Augury provides access to “petabytes” of data. Motherboard found that the US Navy, Army, Cyber Command, Defense Counterintelligence and Security Service have collectively paid at least $3,5 million to access Augury.
“The Augury platform is not designed to target specific individuals users or user activity. The platform specifically does not have subscriber information necessary to connect with any user," Team Cymru told Motherboard.
“Our platform does not provide information about users or subscribers preventing the ability to use it to target individuals. Our platform captures only a limited sampling of the available data and allows queries for a limited sample and limited data, which originates from malware, malicious activity, honeypots, scans and third parties that provide it.”
