NSA Capable Of Spying On 70 Percent Of World's Mobile Networks, Documents Leaked by Edward Snowden Reveal

National Security Agency (NSA) is capable of eavesdropping on about 70 percent of world mobile phone networks, suggest documents leaked by Edward Snowden. 

According to the leaked documents, that were published on The Intercept, the NSA, as of May 2012, had collected technical information on about 70 percent of cellphone networks worldwide. 

The documents also reveal how the NSA plans to secretly introduce new flaws into communication systems, making them easily tappable. 

The project, dubbed AURORAGOLD, has already monitored the content of messages sent and received by more than 1,200 email accounts related with major cellphone network operators. 

According to The Intercept report, one high profile surveillance target is GSM Association - a trade group headquartered in U.K. working with Microsoft, Facebook, AT&T, and Cisco. The group is currently being funded by the U.S. government to develop privacy-enhancing technologies. 

The report mentioned that NSA has shown great interest in GSMA's documentation on roaming technology. It has particularly spied on GSMA's encryption protocols and its new roaming technologies. 

Disclosures like this put NSA in bad light, and hence the agency would never admit these leaks. 

NSA spokeswoman Vanee' Vines told in a statement to The Intercept that agency "works to identify and report on the communications of valid foreign targets," so that it can anticipate threats to the United States and its allies. 

"NSA collects only those communications that it is authorized by law to collect in response to valid foreign intelligence and counterintelligence requirements-regardless of the technical means used by foreign targets, or the means by which those targets attempt to hide their communications," Vines added. 

The spied networks include those in Middle East, China and Northern Africa. US is conspicuously missing from the NSA's top targets of network espionage.