Latest Snowden expose: Britain hacked into Pak routers to identify terrorists - New revelations made by US whistleblower Edward Snowden suggest that the United Kingdom secretly obtained vast amounts of communication data from Pakistan to identify terrorists by hacking into routers in the country made by an American company.

The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), British intelligence and security organization responsible for providing signals intelligence, has been monitoring Pakistan's communication data, Snowden said.

The former intelligence contractor with the US National Security Agency (NSA) said that in order to access the data, the GCHQ hacked routers made by Cisco.

He further added that the spying was done with the permission of the British government to help in the identification of terrorists.

British spies can hack into phones remotely with a simple text message and take photos or make audio recordings without owners knowing, Snowden said.

GCHQ can get access to a mobile phone by sending it an encrypted text message and use it for taking pictures and listening in. Both the NSA and GCHQ had invested heavily in technology allowing them to hack smartphones, Snowden said.

Snowden spoke bout GCHQ's "Smurf Suite," which is a collection of secret intercept capabilities individually named after the little blue imps of Belgian cartoon fame, and "Nosey Smurf" is the 'hot mic' tool. If it is in your pocket, GCHQ can turn the microphone on and listen to everything that's going on around you.

"Dreamy Smurf" is the power management tool which means turning your phone on and off with you knowing, and "Tracker Smurf" is a geo-location tool which permits GCHQ to follow you with a greater precision than you would get from the typical triangulation of cellphone towers, he said.