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Here's a shocking discovery: The NSA has planted spy software and hardware into 100,000 computers worldwide. The bugs will allow the agency to conduct surveillance on a computer and it doesn't even have to be online.

The implants are tiny radio transceivers, and they must have been planted inside a computer either before being shipped to manufacturers or afterward.

The transceivers, which can look like normal USB plugs, then "infiltrate" and "exfiltrate" data from the hacked computers to an NSA relay station the size of a large suitcase. It uses radio waves so it doesn't require the computers to be online.

And you thought creating the "air-gap" was the solution to cut contact with the world.

The technology is part of a program codenamed Quantum. NSA had used it to spy on Chinese hackers, Russian military networks, Mexican drug cartels and computers in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and India and more, The New York Times reports.

Quantum inserts were also used in the Stuxnet cyberattack against Iran’s nuclear facilities. This is the first time that a specific NSA program has been linked to the attack, which crippled Iranian's nuclear centrifuges, making them spin out of control.

Jacob Appelbaum, a security researcher mentioned Quantum implants in his talk at the hacking conference Chaos Communication Congress.

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