The AI had been deployed to analyze large amounts of data obtained by foreign intelligence, the agency said.
Western intelligence agencies hacked the phones of Russian officials and other people with access to sensitive information, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has said.
The devices of Russian diplomats, politicians, high-ranking officials and journalists were allegedly compromised, allowing foreign spies to record everything around them and collect massive amounts of data, the agency said in a statement on Tuesday.
Access to the devices had been gained through a so-called zero-day vulnerability, a security hole in software unknown to its developers, according to the FSB.
The vast amount of information collected by Western intelligence agencies would have been impossible for humans to process just a few years ago, but AI is now being used to analyze it within minutes, the agency stressed.
According to the FSB, the investigation began in 2023 after specialists from the Russian cyber security company Kaspersky Lab discovered unusual Internet activity on employees’ Apple devices.
The US has been building its cyber intelligence infrastructure for decades, especially since the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001. Introduced after the 9/11 attacks, the law gave US intelligence agencies broad powers to demand information from IT companies in the name of national security.
Washington’s surveillance activities are not limited to rival nations. In 2013, America was caught spying on then German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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