Category Archives: human rights

Suspected Iranian hackers exploit VPN, Telegram to monitor dissidents

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For the last six years, hackers have stalked Iranian dissidents with spying tools that mimic the software those dissidents use to protect their communications, security firm Kaspersky said Wednesday. Researchers from Kaspersky and other firms only recently pieced together the activity, showing the limits of the cyber industry’s knowledge of Tehran-linked hacking against those who often bear the brunt of it: Iranian citizens. While Kaspersky researchers did not attribute the hacking to the Iranian government, FireEye, another security firm, said it suspected the hackers were affiliated with Tehran. The findings are consistent with a surveillance dragnet that Iranian authorities have used to jail and beat protesters who challenge the regime. Iranian security services killed 304 people in a 2019 crackdown, according to Amnesty International. The hackers, Kaspersky said, have sent their targets malware-laced images and videos claiming to be from prisoners in Iran. When opened, the malicious documents hijack users’ […]

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White House executive order further restricts investments in Chinese surveillance technology

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President Joe Biden on Thursday signed an executive order that expands restrictions on U.S. investments in the Chinese defense sector and takes aim at the export of Chinese surveillance technologies. Building on a Trump administration order, the new directive expands to 59 the list of Chinese companies that Americans are barred from investing in. The order, the White House said, will also give U.S. officials greater leeway in addressing the threat of Chinese surveillance technology that is used to repress religious or ethnic groups inside and outside of China. The directive allows the U.S. “to prohibit – in a targeted and scoped manner – U.S. investments in Chinese companies that undermine the security or democratic values of the United States and our allies,” the White House said in a statement. Several Chinese technology firms have been implicated in the Chinese government’s mass detention of Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim minority group whose […]

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Ex-US ambassador, anti-corruption activists in Ukraine were targets of suspected Russian phishing

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An ex-U.S. ambassador to Russia, anti-corruption activists in Ukraine and election observers in other parts of Eastern Europe were among the apparent targets of a suspected Russian state-sponsored hacking effort, according to data linked to the spying operation that a researcher shared with CyberScoop. The list offers classic examples of organizations that Russian spies might want to infiltrate, including those working to expose graft, combat disinformation and promote secure elections. It also points to the persistent threats that small nonprofits face from well-resourced hackers, as well as the long-running alleged Russian efforts to undermine democratic institutions. Microsoft on May 27 said hackers had used a breached account belonging to the U.S. Agency for International Development, a U.S. government agency, to send phishing emails to some 3,000 email accounts at 150 organizations in 24 countries (U.S. officials estimated an even broader set of targets: 7,000 accounts and 350 organizations.) Microsoft blamed […]

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UN cybercrime proposal could help autocrats stifle free speech, rights group says

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Human rights advocates are warning that a controversial proposal at the United Nations to counter cybercrime could validate tactics that authoritarian governments around the world have used to criminalize free speech and security research. The Russian and Chinese governments back the notion of establishing a new anti-cybercrime convention, a process that diplomats at the U.N. will begin considering next week. However the wording of the proposal, which calls for curbs on the use of technologies for “criminal purposes,” is vague to the point of potentially enabling further government repression, critics say. A report issued Wednesday by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, details a growing list of so-called cybercrime laws that governments have allegedly used to target dissenters, or infringe on personal privacy. A Pakistani law, for example, enables authorities to block websites used to criticize government officials. In the Philippines, police can collect computer data without a […]

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China-based hackers used front companies to hack Uighurs, Facebook says

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Facebook on Wednesday exposed what it said was a long-running hacking campaign targeting Uighurs living around the world and supported by Chinese technology firms. The scheme was aimed at journalists and dissidents, and affected Uighurs living in places like as far-flung as U.S., Turkey and Australia. It involved fake Facebook personas duping targets into clicking on links, as well as malicious Android and iOS software, Facebook said. Facebook said it’s aware of less than 500 people whom the campaign targeted. Facebook’s investigators traced the Android malware developers in the hacking campaign to Chinese firms Beijing Best United Technology and Dalian 9Rush Technology. Neither could be reached for comment on Wednesday. China has a history of allegedly using front companies as cover for its hacking operations. The hacking campaign began as far as back as 2019, and Facebook executives said they expected the attackers to continue their spying efforts. It’s only […]

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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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Allegations of planted evidence raise questions about hacking ecosystem in India

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Recent allegations that planted evidence may have been used to frame an activist in a terrorism case are raising new questions about the surveillance and hacking ecosystem in India. The human rights activist in question, Rona Wilson, is one of several people accused of plotting to overthrow the Indian government in connection with a violent demonstration in Bhima Koregaon, India in 2017. Wilson is among the several activists accused of instigating violence at the demonstration. Cases against the defendants have largely relied on digitally-collected evidence, according to Amnesty International. He has been incarcerated for nearly three years. A new forensic analysis of Wilson’s computer, conducted by Boston-based Arsenal Consulting, is now raising questions about the viability of the evidence, who put it there and the extent to which hacking in India is used to further the government’s prosecutions. Details about the ecosystem of surveillance and cyber mercenary groups in India […]

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Warrantless searches of devices at border allowed, appeals court finds

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled earlier this week that Customs and Border Protection agents may conduct warrantless searches of cellphones and electronic devices at the U.S. border, in a ruling that is already raising privacy questions among digital rights advocates. The decision, issued by a panel of judges and authored by Judge Sandra Lynch, states that the government’s interest in searching persons at the border is “at its zenith,” therefore trumping privacy concerns. “Electronic device searches do not fit neatly into other categories of property searches, but the bottom line is that basic border searches of electronic devices do not involve an intrusive search of a person,” Lynch writes. The decision is at odds with an earlier district court finding that these kinds of searches violate the Fourth Amendment because there’s no assurance there is a “reasonable suspicion” that the devices in question contained digital […]

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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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