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Governments should work to strengthen online security, not undermine it

On Friday, Mozilla filed comments in a case brought by Privacy International in the European Court of Human Rights involving government “computer network exploitation” (“CNE”)—or, as it is more colloquially known, government hacking.

While the case focuses on the direct privacy and freedom of expression implications of UK government hacking, Mozilla intervened in order to showcase the further, downstream risks to users and internet security inherent in state CNE. Our submission highlights the security and related privacy threats from government stockpiling and use of technology vulnerabilities and exploits.

Government CNE relies on the secret discovery or introduction of vulnerabilities—i.e., bugs in software, computers, networks, or other systems that create security weaknesses. “Exploits” are then built on top of the vulnerabilities. These exploits are essentially tools that take advantage of vulnerabilities in order to overcome the security of the software, hardware, or system for purposes of information gathering or disruption.

When such vulnerabilities are kept secret, they can’t be patched by companies, and the products containing the vulnerabilities continue to be distributed, leaving people at risk. The problem arises because no one—including government—can perfectly secure information about a vulnerability. Vulnerabilities can be and are independently discovered by third parties and inadvertently leaked or stolen from government. In these cases where companies haven’t had an opportunity to patch them before they get loose, vulnerabilities are ripe for exploitation by cybercriminals, other bad actors, and even other governments,1 putting users at immediate risk.

This isn’t a theoretical concern. For example, the findings of one study suggest that within a year, vulnerabilities undisclosed by a state intelligence agency may be rediscovered up to 15% of the time.2 Also, one of the worst cyber attacks in history was caused by a vulnerability and exploit stolen from NSA in 2017 that affected computers running Microsoft Windows.3 The devastation wreaked through use of that tool continues apace today.4

This example also shows how damaging it can be when vulnerabilities impact products that are in use by tens or hundreds of millions of people, even if the actual government exploit was only intended for use against one or a handful of targets.

As more and more of our lives are connected, governments and companies alike must commit to ensuring strong security. Yet state CNE significantly contributes to the prevalence of vulnerabilities that are ripe for exploitation by cybercriminals and other bad actors and can result in serious privacy and security risks and damage to citizens, enterprises, public services, and governments. Mozilla believes that governments can and should contribute to greater security and privacy for their citizens by minimizing their use of CNE and disclosing vulnerabilities to vendors as they find them.

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1https://www.wired.com/story/notpetya-cyberattack-ukraine-russia-code-crashed-the-world/
2https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/files/publication/Vulnerability Rediscovery (belfer-revision).pdf
3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WannaCry_ransomware_attack
4https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/25/us/nsa-hacking-tool-baltimore.html