Vault 8 Leaks: Wikileaks Revealed CIA’s Secret Malware Control System called “Hive” Source Code

Wikileaks revealed a source code for CIA’s Malware control system called Hive which is used by CIA to control their Malware’s that is running on the target systems.

They announced vault 8 for covering source code and development logs for tools that were described in vault 7 series.

Hive is the most Sophisticated CIA’s infrastructure that helps to solve the critical problems for Malware operators who is working behalf of CIA.

An example scenario that, suppose a sophisticated CIA Malware has been discovered on the target computer by an Antivirus security researchers or victims, they can’t able find the original servers by just looking at the communication of the malware which is operating by CIA.

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Also, Hive solves the most critical problems even if you place a sophisticated malware on victim computer it is useless if there is no way to establish communication with its C&C server.

This Month April WikiLeaks Published the Hive related Document in Vault 7 Leaks series.

Wikileaks Published this complete document for better understanding and information about the CIA’s sophisticated covert channel for investigative journalists, forensic experts, and general Public.

Hive Provide covert communications to CIA operators that enable a whole range of CIA malware to send exfiltrated information to CIA and also receive the new Instruction from CIA malware operator.

The files in this code repository were created between August 2013 and October 2015, but the development of Hive started much earlier.

You can Download the Leaked Source code for the Hive  – Download

CIA Operation using Hive

Hive infrastructure is capable of performing multiple operations in target systems using multiple implants.

In this case, at least one cover domain has been used for each operation that was anonymously registered.

Also, a VPS (virtual private server) is using the operation domain is rented from commercial hosting providers and its software is customized according to CIA specifications. 

Accorinding to WikiLeaks, These servers are the public-facing side of the CIA back-end infrastructure and act as a relay for HTTP(S) traffic over a VPN connection to a “hidden” CIA server called ‘Blot’.

This Domain is delivering normal content to the public and if anyone visits the website then it seems like a normal domain.

Since Hive using uncommon Optional Client Authentication so that the user browsing the website is not required to authenticate.But implant that talking to Hive from Users side does authenticate themselves.

“Later Traffic from implants is sent to an implant operator management gateway called Honeycomb  while all other traffic goes to a cover server that delivers the in suspicious content for all other users”

So CIA’identitieses will impersonate and CIA exfiltration of data will not be identifiedd by target organization that looks at the network traffic coming out of its network.