Collaborate Disseminate
Ron Wyden, D-Ore., fears the regulations have a major loophole and don’t cover enough repressive governments’ agencies.
The post Exclusive: Senator calls on Commerce to tighten proposed rules on exporting surveillance, hacking tech to problematic nations appeared first on CyberScoop.
The government-backed hackers exploited fake friends and family with spear-phishing lures, according to research published Wednesday.
The post Russian hacking campaign targets rights groups, media, former US ambassador appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading Russian hacking campaign targets rights groups, media, former US ambassador
Brett Solomon is retiring from AccessNow after fifteen years as its Executive Director. He’s written a blog post about what he’s learned and what comes next.
Continue reading Brett Solomon on Digital Rights
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that breaking end-to-end encryption by adding backdoors violates human rights:
Seemingly most critically, the [Russian] government told the ECHR that any intrusion on private lives resulting from decrypting messages was “necessary” to combat terrorism in a democratic society. To back up this claim, the government pointed to a 2017 terrorist attack that was “coordinated from abroad through secret chats via Telegram.” The government claimed that a second terrorist attack that year was prevented after the government discovered it was being coordinated through Telegram chats…
Continue reading EU Court of Human Rights Rejects Encryption Backdoors
Pressured by the Chinese government to comply with censorship guidelines, Zoom drafted guidelines to suppress content critical of Beijing.
The post Zoom executives knew about key elements of plan to censor Chinese activists appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading Zoom executives knew about key elements of plan to censor Chinese activists
Following a report on its activities, the Israeli spyware company QuaDream has shut down.
This was QuadDream:
Key Findings
- Based on an analysis of samples shared with us by Microsoft Threat Intelligence, we developed indicators that enabled us to identify at least five civil society victims of QuaDream’s spyware and exploits in North America, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Victims include journalists, political opposition figures, and an NGO worker. We are not naming the victims at this time.
- We also identify traces of a suspected iOS 14 zero-click exploit used to deploy QuaDream’s spyware. The exploit was deployed as a zero-day against iOS versions 14.4 and 14.4.2, and possibly other versions. The suspected exploit, which we call …
Continue reading Cyberweapons Manufacturer QuaDream Shuts Down
Citizen Lab has identified three zero-click exploits against iOS 15 and 16. These were used by NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware in 2022, and deployed by Mexico against human rights defenders. These vulnerabilities have all been patched.
One interestin… Continue reading New Zero-Click Exploits against iOS
The groups say the bill has laudable goals but could come with unintended consequences for vulnerable children.
The post Rights groups: Kids’ online safety bill could put vulnerable teens at risk appeared first on CyberScoop.
Continue reading Rights groups: Kids’ online safety bill could put vulnerable teens at risk
Yet another basic human rights violation, courtesy of NSO Group: Citizen Lab has the details:
Key Findings
- We discovered an extensive espionage campaign targeting Thai pro-democracy protesters, and activists calling for reforms to the monarchy.
- We forensically confirmed that at least 30 individuals were infected with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware.
- The observed infections took place between October 2020 and November 2021.
- The ongoing investigation was triggered by notifications sent by Apple to Thai civil society members in November 2021. Following the notification, multiple recipients made contact with civil society groups, including the Citizen Lab.
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A U.N. cybercrime treaty could give global governments new — and what many human rights defenders call worrisome — powers to prosecute cybercrimes.
The post UN to begin new phase of negotiations on cybercrime treaty, alarming human rights activists appeared first on CyberScoop.