NSA reportedly installing spyware on US-made hardware

While the U.S. government warned router buyers that the Chinese government might spy on them through networking gear made in China, the U.S. National Security Agency was doing that very thing, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper Monday.

The NSA physically intercepted routers, servers, and other computer network devices to plant backdoors and other spyware before they're shipped overseas, Glenn Greenwald, a journalist in the newspaper claims.

Greenwald cites a June 2010 document (leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden) labeled as being from the head of the NSA's Access and Target Development group.

"The NSA routinely receives - or intercepts - routers, servers, and other computer network devices being exported from the US before they are delivered to the international customers," Greenwald writes. "The agency then implants backdoor surveillance tools, repackages the devices with a factory seal and sends them on. The NSA thus gains access to entire networks and all their users."

This isn't the first time the NSA has been accused of this type of activity. A report from German newspaper Der Spiegel alleged that the US agency intercepts deliveries of electronic equipment to plant spyware to gain remote access to systems once they are delivered and installed. According to the report, the NSA has planted backdoors to access computers, hard drives, routers, and other devices from companies such as Cisco, Dell, Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, Samsung, and Huawei.

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