Category Archives: Amnesty International

Vietnamese hackers spent years harassing human rights activists with spyware

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For the past several years a Vietnamese hacking group best known for its attacks on the auto sector has been targeting activists and non-governmental organizations with spyware, according to an Amnesty International investigation published Wednesday. The suspected government-linked hackers, known as OceanLotus or APT32, specifically targeted pro-democracy activist Bui Thanh Hieu, who writes about human rights and economic justice, with spyware on four occasions between February 2018 and December 2019, according to the investigation. The same group launched spyware against a blogger, who has written on a violent police clash in Vietnam in 2009, three times between July and November of last year. Bui Thanh Hieu has been exiled in Germany since 2013. Amnesty did not identify the blogger out of concern for their safety. The hackers also went after the Vietnamese Overseas Initiative for Conscience Empowerment (VOICE), which works on behalf of Vietnamese refugees resettling, in April of 2020. […]

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South Sudan worked with Israeli surveillance company to monitor citizens, Amnesty finds

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The South Sudanese government obtained surveillance capabilities from an Israeli company between at least 2015 and 2017 in order to wiretap citizens’ phones, according to an Amnesty International investigation published Tuesday. The company, Verint Systems Ltd., a subsidiary of U.S.-based Verint Systems Inc., worked with the government of South Sudan to provide “communications interception equipment and annual support services,” according to documents reviewed by Amnesty International. As part of the arrangement, South Sudan required Vivacell, a telecommunications company, to pay Verint at least $762,236 in order to intercept citizens’ communications, according to Amnesty’s assessment. The reports of South Sudan’s National Security Service’s (NSS) intrusive surveillance meld into a pattern of dangerous human rights abuses in South Sudan, including prolonged detention, extrajudicial killings and the silencing of government critics, human rights activists and journalists, according to Amnesty. A United Nations Panel of Experts found in 2016 that NSS’ “ability to identify […]

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Linux and macOS Versions of Commercial ‘Malware’ FinSpy Found Online by Amnesty International

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Amnesty International revealed the existence of Linux and macOS variants of FinSpy, a commercially available spy suite used extensively by threat actors, as well as law enforcement agencies and government from around the world. Criminals are not respon… Continue reading Linux and macOS Versions of Commercial ‘Malware’ FinSpy Found Online by Amnesty International→

Israeli court rejects request to revoke NSO Group’s export license

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An Israeli judge has ruled against revoking the export license of Israeli software surveillance firm NSO Group, despite allegations its software has been used to target human rights activists and political dissidents around the globe. Amnesty International filed the lawsuit in Israel last year alleging one of its employees had been targeted by Pegasus, NSO Group’s signature software. But the judge overseeing the case said that Amnesty had not provided sufficient evidence to show that Pegasus was used against the alleged targets, according to Haaretz, which first reported the decision. Security researchers and human rights groups have claimed that Pegasus has been used to target political dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists, including an Amnesty employee, in several countries. Most notably, Pegasus is alleged to have been used to target associates of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi before he was murdered. Amnesty alleged in June that the technology was also being […]

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Moroccan journalist targeted by NSO Group spyware, Amnesty International says

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Amnesty International said Sunday its security team found evidence of abuse on a Moroccan journalist’s cell phone that can be tied back to spyware developed by NSO Group. The journalist, Omar Radi, was targeted by surveillance software capable of tracking texts, calls, emails, camera, and more — just days after NSO Group, the Israeli surveillance software company, announced it would stop its products from being used to perpetuate human rights abuses, according to Amnesty International. Although the attackers behind the targeting are unconfirmed, Amnesty says evidence indicates the Moroccan government is behind the surveillance. NSO Group has repeatedly said it only sells its technology to governments. The targeting of Radi came at a time when he was being repeatedly harassed by the Moroccan government between January 2019 and January 2020. Radi was targeted by a series of network injection attacks, which allowed attackers to intercept and manipulate targets’ internet traffic, Amnesty International said. […]

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Research shows human rights activists in India were targeted with spyware, including NSO’s Pegasus

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Human rights activists in India were targeted by a coordinated spyware campaign from January to October of 2019, according to research published Monday by Amnesty International and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. Nine activists in total were targeted, eight of which have been calling for the release of 11 people jailed during protests related to the violent uprising in Bhima Koregaon, India in 2018. The targets were sent spearphishing emails with malicious links and files that, if clicked, would infect the victims’ computers with spyware capable of tracking their communications. Three of the activists were targeted by Pegasus, a notorious spyware program developed by Israeli surveillance software firm NSO Group, according to Amnesty and Citizen Lab. Human rights defenders in India have been victimized by spyware in the past. But the research shows that surveillance software has been leveraged multiple times against activists linked to the Bhima Koregaon activists. One […]

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Uzbekistan surveillance campaign leverages new spyware against human rights activists

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Human rights activists and journalists in Uzbekistan, whom researchers have long claimed are victims of intrusive surveillance, are facing an increasingly sophisticated campaign in Uzbekistan, according to new findings from Amnesty International. Last year, a Canadian non-profit, eQualitie, revealed that a group of unidentified attackers has targeted journalists and human rights defenders in Uzbekistan with spearphishing emails since 2016. In June, the attackers escalated their activity, and are now trying to leverage spyware against hundreds of targets, Amnesty said in research published Friday. The advanced espionage efforts highlight how the surveillance threat to vulnerable groups in Uzbekistan is “more sophisticated than previously documented, and able to bypass some security tools [human rights defenders] use to protect themselves[,]” according to the Amnesty International blog detailing the analysis. Human rights activists have been fighting against forced labor and torture in Uzbekistan’s criminal justice system, according to Human Rights Watch. Watchdog groups also have cited unfair criminal trials, and politically-motivated imprisonment in the country. Authorities typically claim they […]

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Amnesty suit asking Israel to revoke NSO Group’s license heads to court

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Amnesty International is urging an Israeli court to restrict the business of NSO Group, a spyware vendor accused of helping repressive governments spy on dissidents and journalists. The U.K.-based human rights group on Tuesday published a statement encouraging Tel Aviv’s District Court to revoke NSO Group’s export license, a move that would effectively prohibit the company from providing foreign clients with its technology. NSO Group sells Pegasus, hacking software which allows clients to monitor targets’ emails, text messages, collect passwords and gather other valuable personal information. Government critics and journalists in Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been targeted with Pegasus, Amnesty said. “The best way to stop NSO’s powerful spyware products reaching repressive governments is to revoke the company’s export license, and that is exactly what this legal case seeks to do,” Danna Ingleton, deputy director of Amnesty Tech, said in a statement Tuesday. NSO Group, founded […]

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NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware detected in attacks against Moroccan journalist, activist

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Hackers potentially working on behalf of a foreign government have targeted Moroccan human rights advocates with malicious software built by NSO Group, a controversial spyware vendor, according to Amnesty International. Since 2017, journalist Maati Monib and Abdessadak El Bouchattaoui, an attorney who has protested the Moroccan government’s security forces, repeatedly have received SMS messages containing malicious links that, if clicked, would install the Pegasus malware, Amnesty found. It’s the latest allegation that NSO Group provided Pegasus to a customer that used it for more than combating terrorism and crime. The software allows attackers to take almost total control of an affected phone. Human Rights Watch has documented a list of government efforts to obstruct reform in Morocco, including prison sentences for people who have “harmed” the monarchy there or insulted Islam. El Bouchattaoui, one of the activists whose experience was detailed by Amnesty, was sentenced to two years in prison for […]

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