Category Archives: Amnesty International

Human rights groups to ask Israeli court to revoke NSO Group’s export license

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Human rights advocates, including Amnesty International, plan to file a petition Tuesday in Israeli court to revoke mobile spyware vendor NSO Group’s export license, citing alleged abuses stemming from the vendor’s technology. The legal action is an escalation in the confrontation between civil society groups and NSO Group, and comes after the company’s Pegasus surveillance software was reportedly used to track an Amnesty International researcher. Pegasus is so potent in its ability to compromise a mobile phone that it requires a license from the Israeli defense ministry to export. Where NSO Group’s spyware has been reportedly been misused, “we’re going to keep looking for accountability on a case-by-case basis,” said Amnesty’s Danna Ingleton, who will submit an affidavit as part of the court filing. “In the meantime, there has to be enough evidence to revoke the export license.” The legal motion, to be submitted in the District Court of Tel […]

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Hackers target ‘hundreds’ of Middle East activists with fake login pages, 2FA bypass schemes

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Hackers have been going after email accounts of hundreds of Middle East-based human rights activists, journalists and others using methods that bypass security features of services like Google, Yahoo, ProtonMail and Tutanota, according to a report published Wednesday by Amnesty International. The human rights watchdog says its likely that a single group of hackers has been using clever pages that mimic secure login pages, as well as tricks that bypass two-factor authentication (2FA) to target accounts at least throughout 2017 and 2018. The targets are mostly in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Yemen and Palestine, the group said. “What makes these campaigns especially troubling is the lengths to which they go to subvert the digital security strategies of their targets,” the group says in the report. Amnesty International analyzes the activity as two separate campaigns. One uses fake pages that look like they belong to ProtonMail and Tutanota in order to get […]

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Report: Powerful spyware used to target Amnesty International employee and Saudi activist

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An Amnesty International employee and Saudi Arabian activist were targeted with what appears to be commercial spyware only sold to governments. In a lengthy blog post released Wednesday, London-based Amnesty International revealed that a suspicious message with a malicious link was sent to an employee. Citizen Lab, a Canadian research organization, helped analyze the incident and posted its own set of findings, which corroborated Amnesty’s report. Both suggest that the malicious messages bore the marks of Pegasus, a highly sophisticated commercial spyware and exploitation tool sold by NSO Group, a secretive Israeli surveillance company that only sells its highly proprietary wares to authorized governments. In June, an Amnesty employee received a WhatsApp message in Arabic with Saudi Arabia-related content and a malicious link. Earlier this summer, a Saudi human rights activist living abroad also received SMS messages with a similar link. Neither were opened. Had the recipients clicked the links, researchers believe that they […]

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Powerful Smartphone Malware Used to Target Amnesty International Researcher

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Human rights charity Amnesty International has found hackers attempted to infect one of their researcher’s phones with malware from Israeli vendor NSO Group. Continue reading Powerful Smartphone Malware Used to Target Amnesty International Researcher→

Experts Have Sobering Message on Human Rights, Privacy for Security Pros

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Speakers at Virus Bulletin painted grim pictures of the threats to physical safety and civil liberties posed by commercial spyware and high-end surveillance software often sold to governments. Continue reading Experts Have Sobering Message on Human Rights, Privacy for Security Pros→

The Guy Who Saved Your iPhone From Hackers Is Stuck in a UAE Jail

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‘Million dollar dissident’ Ahmed Mansoor’s actions protected millions of iPhone users from sophisticated spyware. If you care about your privacy and security, you should be fighting for his release. Continue reading The Guy Who Saved Your iPhone From Hackers Is Stuck in a UAE Jail→