WikiLeaks 'reveals CIA can use smart TVs to spy on you'

WikiLeaks has released a huge collection of information detailing how the US Central Intelligence Agency targeted "smart" household objects and turned them into spying devices as part of a worldwide hacking scheme.

The leak, code-named "Vault 7", is one of the largest publications of confidential documents on the CIA to date and the first part comprises of 8,761 documents called Year Zero.

It's alleged to have come from an isolated, high-security network inside the CIA's Centre for Cyber Intelligence in Virginia.

WikiLeaks said in a statement: "This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA.

"The archive appears to have been circulated among former US government hackers and contractors in an unauthorised manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive."

Smart TVs can be used by the CIA as 'covert microphones', the documents say Credit: PA

The documents are alleged to include details of how the agency conducted a covert hacking programme and created "weaponized exploits" against a wide range of commercially-available products.

According to the documents, iPhones, Android phones and Microsoft Windows are all exploitable by the government agency, and even Samsung TVs can be used as "covert microphones".

WikiLeak's report even goes so far as to suggest that the CIA is developing tools that could remotely control certain vehicle software, allowing the agency to cause "accidents".