Wikileaks says they contacted Apple, Google and more about protection from the CIA

Wikileaks says its trying to help.

The group tweeted on Tuesday that it had reached out to Microsoft, Google, Apple, Mozilla and "MicroTik" (we're assuming they meant MikroTik) to talk with those companies about protecting customers from the intrusions of CIA malware.

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Wikileaks released a trove of documents on March 7 that showed CIA agents can turn smart TVs into covert spies, and get around encrypted chat apps such as Signal and WhatsApp, among other things.

The document dump is allegedly part one in a series to come.

Mashable hadn't heard anything definitive from Apple, Google or MicroTik at the time of publication, so we're not sure whether Wikileaks did reach out to them. But a Mozilla spokesperson did say Wikileaks contacted them via [email protected] over the weekend, which is the email Mozilla uses for "security vulnerability reporting," according to a spokesperson.

"We want every potential security issue to be reported so that we can take action," the spokesperson said. "When we receive information, regardless of the source, about anything that needs to be patched, we will take the necessary steps to remedy and will follow our published notification procedures."

Microsoft on Monday confirmed to Axios that Wikileaks had contacted them, though had not shared any information.

The document dump and subsequent publicizing by Wikileaks has put tech companies in a bit of a rough spot. They may feel obligated to chat with Wikileaks about potential vulnerabilities in order to strengthen their products on behalf of their customers, but working with Wikileaks now comes with the stigma of working with a group that some have accused of being a wing of the Russian government's intelligence operations.

Electronic Frontier Foundation General Counsel Kurt Opsahl said last week that he figured companies would be glad to look at the specifics of the exploits if Wikileaks is willing to hand them over, but that companies might not need to see them in order to benefit from the documents already publicly available.

Wikileaks didn't publish the exact CIA exploits, but they provided enough clues that tech companies could make educated guesses about where to start looking. Plus, Apple and Google have said they had already fixed many of the issues Wikileaks made public, so it's unclear how much some companies have to gain by engaging with the leaking organization.

Instead, Opsahl suggested it might make more sense for the government and tech companies to use the document dump as a means to open a better dialogue about how to balance the needs of each other going forward.