Category Archives: Citizen Lab

More on NSO Group and Cytrox: Two Cyberweapons Arms Manufacturers

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Citizen Lab published another report on the spyware used against two Egyptian nationals. One was hacked by NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The other was hacked both by Pegasus and by the spyware from another cyberweapons arms manufacturer: Cytrox.

We haven’t heard a lot about Cytrox and its Predator spyware. According to Citzen Lab:

We conducted Internet scanning for Predator spyware servers and found likely Predator customers in Armenia, Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Madagascar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Serbia.

Cytrox was reported to be part of Intellexa…

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Apple alerts journalists, activists about state-sponsored hacking attempts after NSO Group suit

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On the same day Apple announced a lawsuit against Israeli spyware vendor NSO Group for developing hacking tools to help breach iOS technology, the company was notifying potential targets of those exploits. El Faro, a news organization in San Salvador, El Salvador, reported late Tuesday that 12 of its staff members received notices from the company, which warned that that “Apple believes you are being targeted by state-sponsored attackers who are trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID.” The company also sent notices to four others in San Salvador who are “leaders of Civil Society organizations and opposition political parties,” the news organization reported. Notices were also sent to six Thai activists and researchers critical of the government there, Reuters reported. NSO Group develops software designed to allow access to target devices through various bugs in Apple’s technology. A company spokesperson told CyberScoop Tuesday that its […]

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Apple patches against alleged NSO Group zero-click exploit used on activists

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Apple released a patch Monday against two security vulnerabilities, one of which the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group has exploited, according to researchers. The updated iOS software patches against a zero-click exploit that uses iMessage to launch malicious code, which in turn allows NSO Group clients to infiltrate targets — including the phone of a Saudi activist in March, researchers at Citizen Lab said. The exploit uses a manipulated gif to crash Apple’s image rendering library. It then launches spyware that researchers say shares distinct features with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. Researchers have named the exploit “FORCEDENTRY.” Zero-click exploits prove especially dangerous because they don’t require users to open the malicious message or link for hackers to gain access to your phone. Researchers are urging Apple Mac, iPhone and Apple Watch users to immediately update their iOS software. The NSO Group exploit was a zero-day, or previously unknown, vulnerability. It’s […]

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Bahrain hacked activists’ iPhones with NSO Group spyware, Citizen Lab says

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Government hackers used NSO Group surveillance technology to infiltrate the phones of nine Bahraini activists, according to a new report from Citizen Lab. The victims included a blogger, activist, members of political organization Waad and members of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. Five of the targets identified by Citizen Lab, an internet watchdog from from the University of Toronto, were listed on a list of individuals obtained by Amnesty International as a part of its “Pegasus Project” investigation. The list is believed to comprise potential targets of NSO Group’s customers. Hackers used fake texts that linked out to malicious software as well as “zero-click” attacks, which do not require any user interaction. Researchers found that attackers successfully exploited the most recent versions of Apple iOS, circumventing protections introduced by the company in January to protect users against such attacks. Amnesty Tech has also reported zero-click exploits successfully exploiting iOS […]

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Apple’s new solution to combat child abuse imagery could radically shift encryption debate

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Apple announced Thursday it will introduce a feature to detect child sexual abuse images being uploaded to iCloud Photos from iPhone devices in the United States. The company has framed the feature as a privacy-preserving way to combat the scourge of images of sexually explicit content involving children shared online. It’s a radical shift in approach to device privacy by Apple, which has often found itself at the forefront of the clash between tech companies and law enforcement over encrypted technologies. Security researchers and privacy experts say that the company’s decision could lead to a slippery slope of government abuse and has radically shifted the debate over encrypted technologies. “They’ve really changed the rules around what the debate around encryption is,” said Christopher Parsons, a senior research associate for Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Most major cloud services including […]

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NSO Group Hacked

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NSO Group, the Israeli cyberweapons arms manufacturer behind the Pegasus spyware — used by authoritarian regimes around the world to spy on dissidents, journalists, human rights workers, and others — was hacked. Or, at least, an enormous trove of documents was leaked to journalists.

There’s a lot to read out there. Amnesty International has a report. Citizen Lab conducted an independent analysis. The Guardian has extensive coverage. More coverage.

Most interesting is a list of over 50,000 phone numbers that were being spied on by NSO Group’s software. Why does NSO Group have that list? The obvious answer is that NSO Group provides spyware-as-a-service, and centralizes operations somehow. Nicholas Weaver …

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NSO ‘Pegasus’ Hacking Tool Targets Journalists Again

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The NSO Group sells hacking paraphernalia to oppressive regimes. Its Pegasus tool set has been caught hacking journalists.
The post NSO ‘Pegasus’ Hacking Tool Targets Journalists Again appeared first on Security Boulevard.
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Zero-Click Apple Zero-Day Uncovered in Pegasus Spy Attack

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The phones of 36 journalists were infected by four APTs, possibly linked to Saudi Arabia or the UAE. Continue reading Zero-Click Apple Zero-Day Uncovered in Pegasus Spy Attack→

Zero-click iPhone exploit, NSO Group spyware used to target Mideast journalists, Citizen Lab says

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Hackers suspected to work for the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates breached 36 devices belonging to Al Jazeera journalists in recent months by using a zero-click iPhone exploit and NSO Group spyware, according to new Citizen Lab research published Sunday. The suspected government hackers behind the operations had a particularly pernicious tactic for accessing their targets — an iPhone iMessage that requires zero interaction from the target to work, according to the researchers. Citizen Lab is based at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. The hacking operations, which researchers attribute to the governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE with “medium confidence,” could have allowed the operators to record audio, take pictures, track device location and access passwords or stored credentials on compromised phones, the researchers said. Qatar, where Al Jazeera is based, historically has a fraught relationship with […]

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