News Muncher - searching for researchers

The story so far: The Washington Post and human rights non-profit Amnesty International have alleged that the spyware instance known as Pegasus continues to be in use, on this occasion targeting journalists in India. After Apple issued a security notification to certain iPhone users, including MPs, in October, researchers at Amnesty International’s Security Lab analysed the allegedly infected devices, including …

New flaw in Apple devices led to spyware infection, researchers say

Researchers at digital watchdog group Citizen Lab said on Thursday they found spyware they linked to Israeli firm NSO that exploited a newly discovered flaw in Apple devices. While inspecting the Apple device of an employee of a Washington-based civil society group last week, Citizen Lab said it found the flaw had been used to infect the device with NSO's …

Researchers say Thai pro-democracy activists hit by spyware

Cybersecurity researchers reported details Monday of cases where Thai activists involved in the country’s pro-democracy protests had their cell phones or other devices infected and attacked with government- Investigators of the internet watchdog groups Citizen Lab, Thailand’s Internet Law Reform Dialogue, or iLaw, and Digital Reach said at least 30 individuals — including activists, scholars and people working with civil …

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 …

The Biden administration announced Wednesday it is putting new export limits on Israel’s NSO Group, the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire company, saying its tools have been used to “conduct transnational repression.” The company, whose spyware researchers say has been used around the world to break into the phones of human rights activists, journalists, and even members of the Catholic clergy, …

RICHMOND, Va. — The Biden administration announced Wednesday it is putting new export limits on Israel’s NSO Group, the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire company, saying its tools have been used to “conduct transnational repression.” The company, whose spyware researchers say has been used around the world to break into the phones of human rights activists, journalists, and even members of …

Apple has rolled out a software update for the iPhone that patches a critical vulnerability, which, according to some researchers, has been exploited using surveillance software to snoop on a Saudi activist. According to the researchers, the exploit, called CVE-2021-30860, was being used to target journalists and human rights activists in Saudi Arabia and other countries through the notorious surveillance …

Researchers

Apple released an emergency software patch to fix a security vulnerability that researchers said could allow hackers to directly infect Apple devices without any user action. The researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab said the flaw allowed Pegasus spyware from the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire firm, NSO Group, to directly infect the iPhone of a Saudi activist. Although …

The flaw, disclosed Monday by Citizen Lab, allowed a hacker using NSO’s malware Pegasus to gain access to a device owned by a Saudi activist, according to security researchers. Apple Inc. said it patched a security flaw in the Messages app after security researchers determined that Israel-based NSO Group used it to “exploit and infect” the latest devices with spyware. …