WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department announced Tuesday it has sanctioned two people and a Greece-based commercial spyware company headed by a former Israeli military officer that developed, operated and distributed technology used to target U.S. government officials, journalists and policy experts. Amnesty International’s Security Lab in October published a report that said that Predator had been used to target but …
BOSTON — A leading Egyptian opposition politician was targeted with spyware multiple times after announcing a presidential bid — including with malware that automatically infects smartphones, security researchers have found. Citizen Lab said in a blog post that attempts beginning in August to hack former Egpytian lawmaker Ahmed Altantawy involved configuring his phone’s connection to the Vodaphone Egypt mobile network …
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commerce Department added two Europe-based spyware companies to its technology export blacklist on Tuesday for developing surveillance tools deemed to have threatened U.S. national security as well as the privacy and integrity of individuals and organizations worldwide. Intellexa and Cytrox have been linked to Predator spyware, whose reported use in Greece helped precipitate the resignation last …
Security researchers said Thursday they found two kinds of commercial spyware on the phone of a leading exiled Egyptian dissident, providing new evidence of the depth and diversity of the abusive hacker-for-hire industry. The researchers said in a report that the intrusions highlight how “hacking civil society transcends any specific mercenary spyware company.” In detailing the Cytrox infection, the researchers …
Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc is calling out half a dozen private surveillance companies for hacking or other abuses, accusing them in a report published Thursday of collectively targeting about 50,000 people across its platforms. Gleicher refused to identify any of the targets by name but Citizen Lab, in a report published at the same time as Meta's, said that …
BOSTON — Security researchers said Thursday they found two kinds of commercial spyware on the phone of a leading exiled Egyptian dissident, providing new evidence of the depth and diversity of the abusive hacker-for-hire industry. The researchers said they traced the Cytrox hack to Egypt but didn’t know who was behind the NSO Group infection. The researchers said in a …