Globo News in Brazil reported this week that the NSA spied on Petrobras, a large Brazilian oil firm. The report cited classified data leaked by former CIA worker Edward Snowden that shows the NSA avoided the trouble of breaking encryption to spy on users by impersonating Google. Using a sophisticated ‘man in the middle’ attack, the spy agency was able to imitate the search engine while collecting user data.
This may support Google’s claims:
“As for recent reports that the US government has found ways to circumvent our security systems, we have no evidence of any such thing ever occurring. We provide our user data to governments only in accordance with the law,” said Google spokesperson Jay Nancarrow
The NSA has already shaken confidence in the government and it’s spying program domestically and this new information shows they are also willing to damage private American business interests by subverting their systems. Should the NSA be working to damage public credibility of American businesses to pursue their surveillance agenda?
