Spyware

Cyberattacks, regional conflict, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, commercial spyware, AI, misinformation, disinformation, deepfakes and TikTok. These are just some of the top perceived threats that the United States faces, according to the U.S. government’s intelligence agency’s latest global risk assessment. The unclassified report published Monday — sanitized for public release — gave a frank annual window into the U.S. intelligence community’s collective hive mind about the threats it sees facing the U.S.…

NSO Group, the maker of one the world’s most sophisticated cyber weapons, has been ordered by a US court to hand its code for Pegasus and other spyware products to WhatsApp as part of the company’s ongoing litigation.The decision by Judge Phyllis Hamilton is a major legal victory for WhatsApp, the Meta-owned communication app which has been embroiled in a lawsuit against NSO since 2019, when it alleged that the Israeli company’s spyware had been used against 1,400 WhatsApp users over a two-week period.NSO’s Pegasus code,…

Over the weekend, someone posted a cache of files and documents apparently stolen from the Chinese government hacking contractor, I-Soon. This leak gives cybersecurity researchers and rival governments an unprecedented chance to look behind the curtain of Chinese government hacking operations facilitated by private contractors. Like the hack-and-leak operation that targeted the Italian spyware maker Hacking Team in 2015, the I-Soon leak includes company documents and internal communications, which show I-Soon was…

Meta is ramping up pressure on European officials to crack down on the burgeoning commercial spyware industry, after the company announced it had disrupted a number of Italian and Spanish firms that were advertising their surveillance services in plain sight. These firms were, in some cases, targeting people inside Europe, Meta says—surreptitiously accessing their devices and collecting data from them in violation of the government’s data privacy laws.“EU data protection authorities have a unique opportunity here to…

Google is calling on the government to provide more action when it comes to combatting spyware sales and the misuse of surveillance software, according to a new report. “The harm is not hypothetical,” Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) said Tuesday in its report, which is titled “Buying Spying,” adding that “spyware vendors point to their tools’ legitimate use in law enforcement and counterterrorism.” “However, spyware deployed against journalists, human rights defenders, dissidents, and opposition pay…

Image Source : FILE Google report reveals government hackers exploiting 0-day vulnerabilities to target iPhone users Google has recently stated that government hackers used three undiscovered flaws in Apple's iPhone operating system to target users with spyware created by a European startup, last year. Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), which investigates…

Israeli-made Pegasus spyware was used in Jordan to hack the cellphones of at least 30 people, including journalists, lawyers, human rights, and political activists, the digital rights group Access Now said Thursday.The hacking with spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group occurred from 2019 until last September, Access Now said in its report. It did not accuse Jordan’s government of the hacking.One of the targets was Human Rights Watch’s deputy director for the region, Adam Coogle, who said in an interview that it was difficult…

India's government has recently targeted high-profile journalists with Pegasus spyware, Amnesty International and The Washington Post said in a joint investigation published Thursday.Created by Israeli firm NSO Group and sold to governments around the world, Pegasus software can be used to access a phone's messages and emails, peruse photos, eavesdrop on calls, track locations, and even film the owner with the camera. Amnesty said journalists Siddharth Varadarajan of The Wire and Anand Mangnale of The Organized Crime and…

Risk mitigation tips are provided for each of these cybersecurity threats. Cybersecurity company ESET released its H2 2023 threat report, and we’re highlighting three particularly interesting topics in it: the abuse of the ChatGPT name by cybercriminals, the rise of the Lumma Stealer malware and the Android SpinOk SDK spyware. Jump to: ChatGPT name is being abused by cybercriminals In the second half of 2023, ESET has blocked 650,000 attempts to access malicious domains whose names include “chatgpt”…

iPhone users could be targeted by malicious keyboards that can bypass Apple's stringent security checks to spy on user activity, according to a report. While apps that are distributed via the App Store are checked by Apple, these third-party keyboards are installed via another avenue that allows developers to test their apps on iOS. Once installed, these keyboards can be used to discreetly spy on a user and collect their sent messages, passwords, browsing history, bank credentials, and any other text entered on the…