Wikileaks has published details of what it says are wide-ranging hacking tools used by the CIA.

Axar.az reports that the alleged cyber-weapons are said to include malware that targets Windows, Android, iOS, OSX and Linux computers as well as internet routers. Some of the software is reported to have been developed in-house, but the UK's MI5 agency is said to have helped build a spyware attack for Samsung TVs.

A spokesman for the CIA would not confirm the details. "We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents," he said.

A spokesman for the UK Home Office was unable to comment. Wikileaks said that its source had shared the details with it to prompt a debate into whether the CIA's hacking capabilities had exceeded its mandated powers. The NSA faced huge embarrassment when many of its secrets were revealed by Edward Snowden, and now the CIA appears to face similar problems, the BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera said.

The effort to compromise Samsung's F8000 range of smart TVs was codenamed Weeping Angel, according to documents dated June 2014. They describe the creation of a "fake-off" mode, designed to fool users into believing that their screens had been switched off.

Instead, the documents indicate, infected sets were made to covertly record audio, which would later be transferred over the internet to CIA computer servers once the TVs were fully switched back on, allowing their wi-fi links to re-establish. Under a "future work" section, it is suggested that video snapshots might also be taken and the wi-fi limitation be overcome.