WASHINGTON: WikiLeaks said on Tuesday it had obtained a top-secret trove of hacking tools used by the CIA to break into phones, communication apps and other electronic devices, and released documents related to those programmes.

If verified, the information would amount to yet another stunning breach of classified material stolen in recent years from US intelligence agencies.

Wil(iLeal(s, the anti-secrecy organisation led by Julian Assange, said its publication of the documents pertaining to the hacking tools on Tuesday on its website, www.wikileaks.org, was the first in a series of releases drawing from a data set that includes severalhundred million lines of code and includes the CIA`s `entire hacking capacity` Among the explosive claims made in the documents are that the CIA, in partnership with other US and foreign intelligence agencies, has been able to break the encryption on popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal.

`We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents,` CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu said in a statement.

One cyber security consultant who had done work for the US government, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the news, said the leak appeared to be legitimate.Officials in the United States said theywereunawareofwhereWikiLeaks might have obtained the alleged CIA material. One government source said he was unaware of any recent or current investigation into possible leaks of this kind of CIA material.

WikiLeaks also said the documents showed CIA operatives had researched how to hack and take control of devices other than computers and smartphones connected to the internet.

In one case, it added, US and British personnel, under a programme known as Weeping Angel, had developed ways to take over a Samsung smart television, making it appear it was off when in fact it was recording conversations in the room.-Reuters