#CyberSecurity#Spyware#NSOGroup#Pegasus#Jordan: "A new joint investigation, Between a hack and a hard place: how Pegasus spyware crushes civic space in Jordan, by Access Now, the Citizen Lab, and local partners reveals the widespread use of Israeli-owned NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware in Jordan. At least 35 journalists, activists, human rights lawyers, and civil society members have been targeted with Pegasus between 2019 and 2023. Read the full report.
The Pegasus hacking comes against a backdrop of escalating crackdowns on civic space and press freedom in Jordan, growing instability and violence across the region, and an increasingly-exposed use of invasive spyware across the globe. Among those targeted are two Jordan-based staff at Human Rights Watch, as confirmed by a forensic analysis conducted by Human Rights Watch in collaboration with Amnesty International’s Security Lab."
"Hundreds of thousands of ordinary apps, including popular ones such as 9gag, Kik, and a series of caller ID apps, are part of a global surveillance capability that starts with ads inside each app, and ends with the apps’ users being swept up into a powerful mass monitoring tool advertised to national security agencies that can track the physical location, hobbies, and family members of people to build billions of profiles"
#Surveillance#MobileApps#Spyware#AdTech: "Hundreds of thousands of ordinary apps, including popular ones such as 9gag, Kik, and a series of caller ID apps, are part of a global surveillance capability that starts with ads inside each app, and ends with the apps’ users being swept up into a powerful mass monitoring tool advertised to national security agencies that can track the physical location, hobbies, and family members of people to build billions of profiles, according to a 404 Media investigation.
404 Media’s investigation, based on now deleted marketing materials and videos, technical forensic analysis, and research from privacy activists, provides one of the clearest examinations yet of how advertisements in ordinary mobile apps can ultimately lead to surveillance by spy firms and their government clients through the real time bidding data supply chain. The pipeline involves smaller, obscure advertising firms and advertising industry giants like Google. In response to queries from 404 Media, Google and PubMatic, another ad firm, have already cut-off a company linked to the surveillance firm."
> A new type of mercenary spyware came on the radar called Predator. It’ll infect a mobile phone, and then suck up all the data from it. Contacts, text messages, location, and more. This malware is being sold to intelligence agencies around the world.
Listening to this episode opened my eyes about the crazy world of cyber mercenaries, a part of the #MilitaryIndustrialComplex profiting off of wars.
1/3 Yesterday, @EPCulture confirmed the EU Media Freedom Act #EMFA deal.
❌ They missed the chance to ensure sufficient protection for journalists against state interference, & took a dangerous step toward legalising #spyware in the EU.
🕵️♂️ Discover how a simple 'Shutdown.log' file on your #iPhone could be the key to identifying the presence of notorious #spyware, including #Pegasus, QuaDream's Reign, and Intellexa's Predator.
Under the pretense of saving users from third-party spyware, Google is creating an ecosystem in which Chrome itself is the spyware.
Given Google's overwhelming presence in the browser market, this is unconscionable.
We should all despise the ad-tech business, and have no sympathy for the companies getting whacked by Google's actions. But we should not permit one monopolist to replace them all.
#Mobile#Cellphones#Surveillance#CyberSecurity#Spyware: "We’ve all been there before: You’re traveling abroad, and as your plane lands and is taxiing to the gate, you reach for your phone, wait for it to connect to the local network, and then you are greeted with a text message: “Welcome abroad, you’re now roaming!” Beyond the exorbitant fees, few of us are likely to give the matter much thought.
However, hidden within this seemingly routine transaction lies one of the most extensive, yet lesser-known surveillance risks of our age: the technical vulnerabilities at the heart of the world’s mobile communications networks. Accompanying the complex arrangement of global networks, international roaming service providers, and financial agreements are surveillance actors who access and covertly manipulate decades-old protocols to extract your sensitive personal information from the mobile network. Human rights and national security risks abound. A new report by the Citizen Lab (a research center with which we are affiliated) details how it all works."
#AmnestyInternational on Thursday demanded transparency from the Indian government regarding its contracts with surveillance companies, including the Israeli firm NSO Group, after the rights organization joined The Washington Post in publishing what it called "shocking new details" about the use of spyware to target journalists in India.
"Most Sophisticated" #SPYWARE attack campaign called 'Operation Triangulation' targeted Apple #iOS devices with never-before-seen exploits, including exploiting an unknown hardware feature.
Amnesty International reported today that it found invasive spyware on the iPhones of prominent journalists in India, supporting Apple’s late-October warning that journalists and political opponents of Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have been the targets of state-sponsored attacks. Tech Crunch reports: https://flip.it/hrWJZo #Tech#Spyware#Technology#Apple#AmnestyInternational#India