According to a new report from The New York Times, citing National Security Agency documents, "computer experts and American officials," the NSA has an ability to gain access to computers and alter their software remotely, using radio waves.

It sounds like something out of a Mission: Impossible movie but, according to the report, the NSA has infected upwards of 100,000 computers around the world with software to conduct surveillance and create counter-cyberattack weaknesses, even on computers that are not connected to the Internet. Unlike many NSA revelations, this program appears to be wholly directed outside the U.S. at potential cybercriminals, cybermilitary units, and other foes. 

The secret technology has been in use since at least 2008 and relies on a "covert channel of radio waves that can be transmitted from tiny ciruit borads and USB cards inserted surreptitiously into the computers" said the NYTimes. In most cases, the hardware is inserted by a spy, but manufacturers or other individuals with access can be tricked into installing the radio-spying gateway as well. Once in place, the radio-controlled hardware can receive transmissions from relay stations the size of a briefcase, miles away from the computer.

The secret internet-optional radio transmission technology is part of the NSA and United States Cyber Command's larger cyber-spying program code-named Quantum (once again, just like a spy movie).

Quantum has reportedly been used to target cyber-military units of the Chinese Army, Russian military networks, trade institutions in the European Union, and systems used by drug cartels and even the Mexican police. "What's new here is the scale and the sophistication of the intelligence agency's ability to get into computers and networks to which no one has ever had access before," said James Andrew Lewis, cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, to The New York Times. "Some of these capabilities have been around for a while, but the combination of learning how to penetrate systems to insert software and learning how to do that using radio frequencies has given the U.S. a window it's never had before." 

One Snowden document purportedly contains a catalog produced by the NSA filled with "page after page of devices" that can use the radio transmission spy technology. Of example, one device called Cottonmouth I looks just like a USB plug, except there is a small transceiver built into it. The relay station, called Nightstand, fits into a large briefcase and can attack a computer or simply link it to the NSA's network from as far as eight miles away, in some instances. Very cloak-and-dagger.

Unlike other NSA programs that detractors have argued could potentially collect data from unwitting, and unwarranted civilians, Quantum appears to be a pure foreign signals intelligence operation, likened to cold war submarine warfare by one anonymous official. For example, the radio transmission hardware reportedly was used in the Stuxnet attack on Iran's nuclear facilities' computer systems, which secretly and safely rendered hundreds of nuclear fuel-enriching centrifuges inoperable, without the need for a bombing campaign or "wet operations." Notably, Iran's nuclear enrichment systems were not Internet-connected and, at the time, how the Stuxnet virus managed to infiltrate those systems was a mystery.

For more details on the spy program so high-tech it seems fictional, check out the New York Times' report and infographic here.