Security Affairs

JANUARY 9, 2022

The US NCSC and the Department of State published joint guidance on defending against attacks using commercial surveillance tools. In the last years, we have reported several cases of companies selling commercial surveillance tools to governments and other entities that have used them for malicious purposes. Pierluigi Paganini.

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Security Affairs

NOVEMBER 8, 2021

A Hungarian government official confirmed that his government has bought and used the controversial NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. According to Kosa, the use of surveillance software was authorized by a judge or the Minister of Justice. SecurityAffairs – hacking, surveillance. ” This week, the U.S. Pierluigi Paganini.

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Security Affairs

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

The iPhone of a prominent Russian journalist, who is at odds with Moscow, was infected with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The iPhone of the Russian journalist Galina Timchenko was compromised with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The threat actors used a zero-click exploit, likely the PWNYOURHOME. ” reported Citizen Lab.

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SecureWorld News

NOVEMBER 21, 2023

In a groundbreaking investigative report, the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) media network, with technical assistance from Amnesty International's Security Lab, has exposed the shocking extent of the global surveillance crisis and the glaring inadequacies of EU regulation in curbing it. Chairman, Cedric Leighton Associates, LLC.

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Security Affairs

MARCH 27, 2021

Researchers spotted a sophisticated Android spyware that implements exfiltration capabilities and surveillance features, including recording audio and phone calls. Experts from security firm Zimperium have spotted a new sophisticated Android spyware that masquerades itself as a System Update application. Pierluigi Paganini.

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Security Affairs

SEPTEMBER 27, 2020

Experts from Amnesty International uncovered a surveillance campaign that targeted Egyptian civil society organizations with a new version of FinSpy spyware. The binaries are obfuscated and do some checks to detect if the spyware is running in a Virtual Machine. ” reads the Amnesty’s report.

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Security Affairs

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

Apple has filed suit to ban the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group and parent company Q Cyber Technologies from using its product and services. federal court for illegally targeting its customers with the surveillance spyware Pegasus. Apple has sued NSO Group and its parent company Q Cyber Technologies in a U.S.

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Malwarebytes

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has urged the EU to ban the development and deployment of spyware with the capabilities of Pegasus to protect fundamental rights and freedoms. For an in-depth look at Pegasus, have a listen to our podcast about the world’s most coveted spyware, Pegasus: Lock and Code S03E04.

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Security Affairs

OCTOBER 24, 2019

The Sweden government is going to authorize the use of spyware on suspects’ devices to spy on their communications and track them. “ The police are given the opportunity to read encrypted communications. From March next year, it will be legal to intercept encrypted calls in mobiles, computers and video calls.”

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Security Affairs

OCTOBER 30, 2019

WhatsApp sued Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group, accusing it of using a flaw in its messaging service to conduct cyberespionage on journalists and activists. WhatsApp sued the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group accusing it of carrying out malicious attacks against its users. reads the description provided by Facebook.

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Security Affairs

JANUARY 19, 2025

CISA adds Aviatrix Controllers vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog ESET detailed a flaw that could allow a bypass of the Secure Boot in UEFI systems Russia-linked APT Star Blizzard targets WhatsApp accounts Prominent US law firm Wolf Haldenstein disclosed a data breach Clop Ransomware exploits Cleo File Transfer flaw: dozens (..)

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Security Affairs

FEBRUARY 9, 2025

Texas is the first state to ban DeepSeek on government devices Law enforcement seized the domains of HeartSender cybercrime marketplaces WhatsApp disrupted a hacking campaign targeting journalists with Paragon spyware Ransomware attack hit Indian multinational Tata Technologies International Press Newsletter Cybercrime FBI, Dutch Police Disrupt Manipulaters (..)

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Security Affairs

SEPTEMBER 9, 2018

CheckPoint uncovered an extensive surveillance operation conducted by Iranian APT actor and tracked as Domestic Kitten aimed at specific groups of individuals. ” This means that the Domestic Kitten surveillance operation had collateral victims whose details were leaked from contact lists or conversations with the targets.

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Security Affairs

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

The company that sells the parental control spyware app Family Orbit has been hacked, pictures of hundreds of monitored children were left online. The company that sells the parental control spyware app Family Orbit has been hacked, the pictures of hundreds of monitored children were left online only protected by a password.

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Security Affairs

OCTOBER 16, 2023

Encrypted messaging app Signal denied claims of an alleged zero-day flaw in its platform after a responsible investigation. The popular encrypted messaging app Signal denied claims of an alleged zero-day vulnerability in its platform. “PSA: we have seen the vague viral reports alleging a Signal 0-day vulnerability.

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Security Affairs

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

European Parliament votes to tighten up rules for the sale and export of surveillance and encryption technology. The new rules oblige European companies to apply for government licenses to export surveillance solutions demonstrating that the sale doesn’t pose a risk to human rights.

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Security Affairs

DECEMBER 30, 2019

Many governments worldwide persecute their internal oppositions charging them with criminal activities and use strict online surveillance to track them. The surveillance software developed by NSO Group was used by government organizations worldwide to spy on human rights groups , activists, journalists, lawyers, and dissidents.

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Malwarebytes

AUGUST 26, 2021

Researchers from Citizen Lab, an academic research and development lab based in the University of Toronto in Canada, has recently discovered that an exploit affecting iMessage is being used to target Bahraini activists with the Pegasus spyware.

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SecureList

NOVEMBER 28, 2024

However, P8 contains many built-in functions and redesigns of the communication protocol and encryption algorithm, making it a well-designed and powerful espionage platform. The access management software facilitates access to the encrypted partition of the drive. There are also some changes to the victimology.

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Security Affairs

SEPTEMBER 1, 2024

Under Meredith Whittaker, It’s Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong EU investigating Telegram over user numbers Cryptojacking via CVE-2023-22527: Dissecting a Full-Scale Cryptomining Ecosystem Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini ( SecurityAffairs – hacking, newsletter)

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Security Affairs

JUNE 20, 2022

US DoJ announced to have shut down the Russian RSOCKS Botnet MaliBot Android Banking Trojan targets Spain and Italy Chinese DriftingCloud APT exploited Sophos Firewall Zero-Day before it was fixed Experts link Hermit spyware to Italian surveillance firm RCS Lab and a front company A Microsoft 365 feature can ransom files on SharePoint and OneDriveCould (..)

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Malwarebytes

MAY 10, 2022

This legislation will be presented tomorrow, May 11, 2022 and would also apply to communications services that are end-to-end (E2E) encrypted. Not only does this violate our basic human right to privacy, but encrypted messaging has been a boon to activists, dissidents, journalists, whistleblowers, and marginalized groups around the world.

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SecureWorld News

DECEMBER 23, 2020

Pegasus spyware is a phone surveillance solution that enables customers to remotely exploit and monitor devices. The company sells its surveillance technology to governments around the world. And watchdog groups say its products are often found to be used in surveillance abuses. Spyware attacks becoming harder to detect.

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Security Affairs

MAY 6, 2023

Twitter confirmed that a security incident publicly exposed Circle tweets FBI seized other domains used by the shadow eBook library Z-Library WordPress Advanced Custom Fields plugin XSS exposes +2M sites to attacks Fortinet fixed two severe issues in FortiADC and FortiOS Pro-Russia group NoName took down multiple France sites, including the French (..)

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Security Affairs

JANUARY 10, 2021

The Cyber-attack resulted in a large volume of data to be encrypted including database servers and backup data. In December 2020, Symrise AG confirmed that they were the target of Clop Ransomware attack, when 500GB of their data from over 1000 infected devices was encrypted by cyber criminals. 4securitas.com ).

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Security Boulevard

FEBRUARY 10, 2025

Surveillance Tech in the News This section covers surveillance technology and methods in the news. orders Apple to let it spy on users encrypted accounts ArsTechnica The UK government issued a secret order demanding Apple implement a backdoor to let it retrieve anything any Apple user has uploaded to the cloud.

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SecureWorld News

AUGUST 8, 2022

Cybercriminals often use malware to gain access to a computer or mobile device to deploy viruses, worms, Trojans, ransomware, spyware, and rootkits. Remcos, short for Remote Control and Surveillance, was leveraged by malicious cyber actors conducting mass phishing campaigns during the COVID-19 pandemic to steal personal data and credentials.

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SecureList

JUNE 3, 2024

The common methods for analyzing an iOS mobile infection are either to examine an encrypted full iOS backup or to analyze the network traffic of the affected device. This RAT allows an attacker to surveil and harvest sensitive data from a target computer. However, both methods are time consuming and require a high level of expertise.

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Security Boulevard

SEPTEMBER 30, 2021

A look at the nature and effects of legal, advanced spyware on application security. Pegasus is an advanced spyware that exploits vulnerable mobile apps to gain a foothold on iPhone and Android devices. Access encrypted chats from third-party apps. Media outlets first reported the existence of the spyware in 2016.

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Schneier on Security

FEBRUARY 9, 2018

In " The House that Spied on Me ," Kashmir Hill outfits her home to be as "smart" as possible and writes about the results.

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SecureList

APRIL 27, 2021

During routine monitoring of detections for FinFisher spyware tools, we discovered traces that point to recent FinFly Web deployments. The group’s operations were exposed in 2018, showing that it was conducting surveillance attacks against individuals in the Middle East.

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SecureList

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

However, instead of encrypting the data, it purposefully destroyed it in the affected systems. This politician became the target of a previously undiscovered “zero-day” attack aimed at infecting his phone with spyware. The malware posed as ransomware, demanding money from the victims for “decrypting” their data.

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Security Affairs

JUNE 8, 2019

According to the draft law, the country’s intelligence agencies are allowed to, under specific circumstances, to intercept encrypted traffic to and from publishing companies, radio and television broadcasters, and freelance journalists. SecurityAffairs – surveillance, German Intelligence). Pierluigi Paganini.

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SecureList

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

FinSpy, also known as FinFisher or Wingbird , is an infamous surveillance toolset. Kaspersky has been tracking deployments of this spyware since 2011. Both of them are encrypted with RC4. All communications between the server are encrypted with RC4. The encrypted VFS file. Names differ between samples.

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Security Affairs

DECEMBER 22, 2020

We also found that most of the apps used variations of RSA and AES for encryption and key hashes – which are some of the most secure encryption algorithms available today. Four of the apps – Signal, Messenger, WhatsApp and Session – used the Signal protocol for end-to-end encryption. The nature of secure messaging apps.

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eSecurity Planet

OCTOBER 21, 2022

From ransomware attacks locking businesses out of their data until they pay potentially millions of dollars to spyware tracking users’ every move through their infected device, the effects of malware can be devastating. Activation: The ransomware begins encrypting sensitive files or locking down the system. Ransomware.

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Malwarebytes

JULY 22, 2021

Pegasus is spyware, and spyware is not made to respect privacy. According to NSO Group, its main spyware program is a beneficial tool for investigating and preventing terrorist attacks and maintaining the safety of the public. And between 2016 and 2018, more than 1,000 IP addresses were found to be associated with it.

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