Schneier on Security

JULY 15, 2019

All of this information is aggregated and synthesized in a way that gives law enforcement nearly omniscient knowledge over any suspect they decide to surveil. Meanwhile : The FBI wants to gather more information from social media. Today, it issued a call for contracts for a new social media monitoring tool. Boing Boing [link].

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Security Affairs

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Researchers found an updated LightSpy spyware with enhanced data collection features targeting social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. have found an updated version of the LightSpy spyware that supports an expanded set of data collection features to target social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

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Schneier on Security

FEBRUARY 4, 2022

Senators have reintroduced the EARN IT Act, requiring social media companies (among others) to administer a massive surveillance operation on their users: A group of lawmakers led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen.

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Schneier on Security

JANUARY 17, 2023

The FBI also found what specific pages Al-Azhari visited, including a section on donating Bitcoin; another focused on military operations conducted by ISIS fighters in Iraq, Syria, and Nigeria; and another page that provided links to material from ISIS’s media arm. There are lots of ways to de-anonymize Tor users. (I

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Malwarebytes

SEPTEMBER 20, 2024

The companies that were ordered to respond own some of the household social media and streaming service names. Some of the specific information that the FTC was looking for included: How social media and video streaming services collect, use, track, estimate, or derive personal and demographic information.

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Malwarebytes

JANUARY 21, 2025

But the investigative journalists from 404 Media report thatthe tool has also been used for months by members of the public, with many making videos marveling at the technology, and some asking for help with stalking specific women. Now GeoSpy has closed off public access to the tool, after 404 Media asked him for a comment.

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Malwarebytes

JANUARY 20, 2025

The name for this method is surveillance pricing, and the FTC has just released initial findings of a report looking into that practice. In July 2024, the FTC requested information from eight companies offering surveillance pricing products and services that incorporate data about consumers characteristics and behavior.

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Schneier on Security

DECEMBER 5, 2023

Spying and surveillance are different but related things. If I hired that same private detective to put you under surveillance, I would get a different report: where you went, whom you talked to, what you purchased, what you did. Before the internet, putting someone under surveillance was expensive and time-consuming.

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Security Affairs

JANUARY 27, 2025

The vulnerability is a privilege escalation vulnerability that impacts the Core Media framework. The Apple Core Media framework supports multimedia tasks like playback, recording, and manipulation of audio and video on iOS and macOS devices. “A malicious application may be able to elevate privileges.

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Security Affairs

JULY 19, 2019

The Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group informed its clients that it is able to scoop user data by mining from major social media. The Financial Times reported that the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group informed its clients that it is able to mine user data from major social media. Pierluigi Paganini.

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CyberSecurity Insiders

JULY 22, 2021

Chine Foreign Ministry has issued a public statement condemning the distribution and usage of Pegasus Spyware surveillance software by various countries. Now, to those uninitiated, Israel-based NSO Group developed Pegasus surveillance software that was meant for government organizations to spy on criminal suspects.

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The Hacker News

FEBRUARY 21, 2025

OpenAI on Friday revealed that it banned a set of accounts that used its ChatGPT tool to develop a suspected artificial intelligence (AI)-powered surveillance tool.

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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. More commentary from Col.

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Security Affairs

AUGUST 6, 2022

Greek intelligence admitted it had spied on a journalist, while citizens ask the government to reveal the use of surveillance malware. The head of the Greek intelligence told a parliamentary committee that they had spied on a journalist with surveillance malware , Reuters reported citing two sources present. ” reported Reuters.

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Security Affairs

FEBRUARY 2, 2025

WhatsApp linked the hacking campaign to Paragon, an Israeli commercial surveillance vendor acquired by AE Industrial Partners for $900 million in December 2024. There are no official reports about the spyware campaign, but media reports that threat actors may have used a specially crafted PDF file as bait. reads the court document.

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Security Affairs

JANUARY 2, 2024

Ukraine’s SBU revealed that Russia-linked threat actors hacked surveillance cameras to spy on air defense forces and critical infrastructure in Kyiv. Ukraine’s SBU announced they shut down two surveillance cameras that were allegedly hacked by the Russian intelligence services to spy on air defense forces and critical infrastructure in Kyiv.

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Security Affairs

AUGUST 12, 2019

The FBI is searching for contractors to monitor social media for potential threats, the announcement raises concerns for user privacy. The abuse of social media passwords for malicious purpose is quite common, for this reason, the FBI is searching for contractors to monitor them. SecurityAffairs – social media, FBI).

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Schneier on Security

JUNE 23, 2021

Mollitiam is also currently marketing a tool that it claims enables “mass surveillance of digital profiles and identities” across social media and the dark web.

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Security Affairs

APRIL 17, 2025

Processing an audio stream in a maliciously crafted media file may result in code execution. However, the limited, targeted nature of these attacks against iOS users suggests that commercial surveillance vendors or a nation-state actor likely exploited the flaws. As usual, Apple has not shared technical details about the attacks.

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Security Affairs

APRIL 8, 2020

In October 2019, WhatsApp sued the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group accusing it of carrying out malicious attacks against its users. ” reported Motherboard, the media outlet that disclosed the story. According to the NSO CEO, Facebook was interested in improving surveillance capabilities on iOS devices of the Onavo Protect.

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Security Affairs

OCTOBER 22, 2018

The Israel Defense Forces has bid to obtain spying systems that will allow monitoring of the private messages of social media users. Monitoring of social media platforms is a crucial activity for intelligence agencies, almost any government is working to gather intelligence for these systems. ” states the Haaretz. .

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Tech Republic Security

NOVEMBER 23, 2016

In a recent blog post, the social media company clarified the acceptable use of its public APIs, pushing back against tweets being used to track protesters and activists.

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Schneier on Security

MAY 20, 2020

Bart Gellman's long-awaited (at least by me) book on Edward Snowden, Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State , will finally be published in a couple of weeks. It's an interesting read, mostly about the government surveillance of him and other journalists. There is an adapted excerpt in the Atlantic.

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Security Affairs

APRIL 8, 2025

Its value stems from WhatsApp’s massive user base and the potential for covert access to private chats, media, and device-level control. The Meta-owned company linked the hacking campaign to Paragon , an Israeli commercial surveillance vendor acquired by AE Industrial Partners for $900 million in December 2024.

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CyberSecurity Insiders

JULY 4, 2022

Since 2016, China has been conducting surveillance on its populace in different parts of the country. The aim behind the surveillance is to identify crime at its root level and nip it out before it is too late. The post Surveillance data of Chinese citizens put online by hackers appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

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Schneier on Security

MARCH 29, 2018

Harvard Business School professor Shoshana Zuboff calls it " surveillance capitalism." Surveillance capitalism takes this one step further. Google's surveillance isn't in the news, but it's startlingly intimate. That phone is probably the most intimate surveillance device ever invented. We never lie to our search engines.

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Schneier on Security

JUNE 19, 2019

But the infrastructure of total surveillance is everywhere the same, and everywhere being deployed at scale. Just like you can't drop out of the oil economy by refusing to drive a car, you can't opt out of the surveillance economy by forswearing technology (and for many people, that choice is not an option).

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Schneier on Security

JUNE 12, 2020

This is a weird story : Hernandez was able to evade capture for so long because he used Tails, a version of Linux designed for users at high risk of surveillance and which routes all inbound and outbound connections through the open-source Tor network to anonymize it.

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Security Affairs

FEBRUARY 8, 2021

Iran-linked APT group Domestic Kitten, also tracked as APT-C-50, has been conducting widespread surveillance targeting over 1,000 individuals. Both groups have conducted long-running cyber-attacks and intrusive surveillance campaigns, which target both individuals’ mobile devices and personal computers.” Pierluigi Paganini.

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Malwarebytes

OCTOBER 11, 2024

In a report titled “ How TV Watches Us: Commercial Surveillance in the Streaming Era ,” the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) spotlighted a massive data-driven surveillance apparatus that ensnares the public through modern television sets. Brands utilize ACR TV for multiple reasons.

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Dark Reading

AUGUST 12, 2019

A new initiative to pull data from social media platforms may clash with policies prohibiting the use of information for mass surveillance.

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SC Magazine

MARCH 10, 2021

A hacking collective compromised roughly 150,000 internet-connected surveillance cameras from Verkada, Inc., Hacktivist Tillie Kottmann is reportedly among those asserting responsibility for the incident, telling Bloomberg that their act helped expose the security holes of modern-day surveillance platforms.

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Security Affairs

APRIL 17, 2023

The Israeli surveillance firm QuaDream is allegedly shutting down its operations after Citizen Lab and Microsoft uncovered their spyware. Last week Citizen Lab researchers reported that at least five civil society members were victims of spyware and exploits developed by the Israeli surveillance firm QuaDream. and 14.4.2,

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Security Boulevard

JUNE 24, 2021

The Norwegian Consumer Council just published a fantastic new report: “ Time to Ban Surveillance-Based Advertising. From the Introduction: The challenges caused and entrenched by surveillance-based advertising include, but are not limited to: privacy and data protection infringements. opaque business models. serious security risks.

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Security Affairs

DECEMBER 27, 2019

Authorities in Thailand are investigating a cyber attack that resulted in the broadcast of surveillance video from inside a prison in the country’s south. Narat Sawettanan ordered the prison to turn off the surveillance camera system and investigate the incident. ” reported the BangkokPost. ” reported the AP agency.

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Security Affairs

APRIL 26, 2022

An interesting article published by The Intercept reveals the secretive business of a US surveillance firm named Anomaly Six. While Russia was invading Ukraine in February, two unknown surveillance startups, Anomaly Six and Zignal Labs joined forces to provide powerful surveillance services.

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Security Affairs

DECEMBER 30, 2019

The United Arab Emirates denied reports that the popular mobile app ToTok was used as part of a government massive surveillance program. According to a report recently published by the New York Times , the popular app ToTok was used by the UAE government as a surveillance tool. SecurityAffairs – ToTok, surveillance).

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