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The 8,761 documents are the largest and most comprehensive to be published on US spying agencies, including NSA and others, and is the first batch of a series entitled 'Vault 7' to be released by WikiLeaks.

"WikiLeaks begins its new series of leaks on the US Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named 'Vault 7' by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency," the organisation said in a statement.

It noted the CIA had recently "lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponised 'zero day' exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation."

The collection, which allegedly covers more than "several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA" and puts at risk products including Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows as well as Samsung TV's – all of which can be "turned into covert microphones".

But the organisation said it will avoid distributing "armed" software "until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA's programme and how such 'weapons' should be analysed, disarmed and published", it said.

WikiLeaks said its source "wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyber-weapons."

Last July, WikiLeaks published a collection of 19,252 emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), embroiled in allegations of Russian hacking and interference in US elections.