Tag Archives: spyware

Spyware in India

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/11/spyware-in-india.html

Apple has warned leaders of the opposition government in India that their phones are being spied on:

Multiple top leaders of India’s opposition parties and several journalists have received a notification from Apple, saying that “Apple believes you are being targeted by state-sponsored attackers who are trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID ….”

AccessNow puts this in context:

For India to uphold fundamental rights, authorities must initiate an immediate independent inquiry, implement a ban on the use of rights-abusing commercial spyware, and make a commitment to reform the country’s surveillance laws. These latest warnings build on repeated instances of cyber intrusion and spyware usage, and highlights the surveillance impunity in India that continues to flourish despite the public outcry triggered by the 2019 Pegasus Project revelations.

Analysis of Intellexa’s Predator Spyware

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/10/analysis-of-intellexas-predator-spyware.html

Amnesty International has published a comprehensive analysis of the Predator government spyware products.

These technologies used to be the exclusive purview of organizations like the NSA. Now they’re available to every country on the planet—democratic, nondemocratic, authoritarian, whatever—for a price. This is the legacy of not securing the Internet when we could have.

Fake Signal and Telegram Apps in the Google Play Store

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/09/fake-signal-and-telegram-apps-in-the-google-play-store.html

Google removed fake Signal and Telegram apps from its Play store.

An app with the name Signal Plus Messenger was available on Play for nine months and had been downloaded from Play roughly 100 times before Google took it down last April after being tipped off by security firm ESET. It was also available in the Samsung app store and on signalplus[.]org, a dedicated website mimicking the official Signal.org. An app calling itself FlyGram, meanwhile, was created by the same threat actor and was available through the same three channels. Google removed it from Play in 2021. Both apps remain available in the Samsung store.

Both apps were built on open source code available from Signal and Telegram. Interwoven into that code was an espionage tool tracked as BadBazaar. The Trojan has been linked to a China-aligned hacking group tracked as GREF. BadBazaar has been used previously to target Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic minorities. The FlyGram malware was also shared in a Uyghur Telegram group, further aligning it to previous targeting by the BadBazaar malware family.

Signal Plus could monitor sent and received messages and contacts if people connected their infected device to their legitimate Signal number, as is normal when someone first installs Signal on their device. Doing so caused the malicious app to send a host of private information to the attacker, including the device IMEI number, phone number, MAC address, operator details, location data, Wi-Fi information, emails for Google accounts, contact list, and a PIN used to transfer texts in the event one was set up by the user.

This kind of thing is really scary.

Zero-Click Exploit in iPhones

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/09/zero-click-exploit-in-iphones.html

Make sure you update your iPhones:

Citizen Lab says two zero-days fixed by Apple today in emergency security updates were actively abused as part of a zero-click exploit chain (dubbed BLASTPASS) to deploy NSO Group’s Pegasus commercial spyware onto fully patched iPhones.

The two bugs, tracked as CVE-2023-41064 and CVE-2023-41061, allowed the attackers to infect a fully-patched iPhone running iOS 16.6 and belonging to a Washington DC-based civil society organization via PassKit attachments containing malicious images.

“We refer to the exploit chain as BLASTPASS. The exploit chain was capable of compromising iPhones running the latest version of iOS (16.6) without any interaction from the victim,” Citizen Lab said.

“The exploit involved PassKit attachments containing malicious images sent from an attacker iMessage account to the victim.”

Spyware Vendor Hacked

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/09/spyware-vendor-hacked.html

A Brazilian spyware app vendor was hacked by activists:

In an undated note seen by TechCrunch, the unnamed hackers described how they found and exploited several security vulnerabilities that allowed them to compromise WebDetetive’s servers and access its user databases. By exploiting other flaws in the spyware maker’s web dashboard—used by abusers to access the stolen phone data of their victims—the hackers said they enumerated and downloaded every dashboard record, including every customer’s email address.

The hackers said that dashboard access also allowed them to delete victim devices from the spyware network altogether, effectively severing the connection at the server level to prevent the device from uploading new data. “Which we definitely did. Because we could. Because #fuckstalkerware,” the hackers wrote in the note.

The note was included in a cache containing more than 1.5 gigabytes of data scraped from the spyware’s web dashboard. That data included information about each customer, such as the IP address they logged in from and their purchase history. The data also listed every device that each customer had compromised, which version of the spyware the phone was running, and the types of data that the spyware was collecting from the victim’s phone.

Paragon Solutions Spyware: Graphite

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/06/paragon-solutions-spyware-graphite.html

Paragon Solutions is yet another Israeli spyware company. Their product is called “Graphite,” and is a lot like NSO Group’s Pegasus. And Paragon is working with what seems to be US approval:

American approval, even if indirect, has been at the heart of Paragon’s strategy. The company sought a list of allied nations that the US wouldn’t object to seeing deploy Graphite. People with knowledge of the matter suggested 35 countries are on that list, though the exact nations involved could not be determined. Most were in the EU and some in Asia, the people said.

Remember when NSO Group was banned in the US a year and a half ago? The Drug Enforcement Agency uses Graphite.

We’re never going to reduce the power of these cyberweapons arms merchants by going after them one by one. We need to deal with the whole industry. And we’re not going to do it as long as the democracies of the world use their products as well.

Cyberweapons Manufacturer QuaDream Shuts Down

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/04/cyberweapons-manufacturer-quadream-shuts-down.html

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 ENDOFDAYS, appears to make use of invisible iCloud calendar invitations sent from the spyware’s operator to victims.
  • We performed Internet scanning to identify QuaDream servers, and in some cases were able to identify operator locations for QuaDream systems. We detected systems operated from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Ghana, Israel, Mexico, Romania, Singapore, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Uzbekistan.

I don’t know if they sold off their products before closing down. One presumes that they did, or will.

New Zero-Click Exploits against iOS

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/04/new-zero-click-exploits-against-ios.html

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 interesting bit is that Apple’s Lockdown Mode (part of iOS 16) seems to have worked to prevent infection.

News article.

EDITED TO ADD (4/21): News article. Good Twitter thread.

US Citizen Hacked by Spyware

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/03/us-citizen-hacked-by-spyware.html

The New York Times is reporting that a US citizen’s phone was hacked by the Predator spyware.

A U.S. and Greek national who worked on Meta’s security and trust team while based in Greece was placed under a yearlong wiretap by the Greek national intelligence service and hacked with a powerful cyberespionage tool, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and officials with knowledge of the case.

The disclosure is the first known case of an American citizen being targeted in a European Union country by the advanced snooping technology, the use of which has been the subject of a widening scandal in Greece. It demonstrates that the illicit use of spyware is spreading beyond use by authoritarian governments against opposition figures and journalists, and has begun to creep into European democracies, even ensnaring a foreign national working for a major global corporation.

The simultaneous tapping of the target’s phone by the national intelligence service and the way she was hacked indicate that the spy service and whoever implanted the spyware, known as Predator, were working hand in hand.

NetWire Remote Access Trojan Maker Arrested

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/03/netwire-remote-access-trojan-maker-arrested.html

From Brian Krebs:

A Croatian national has been arrested for allegedly operating NetWire, a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) marketed on cybercrime forums since 2012 as a stealthy way to spy on infected systems and siphon passwords. The arrest coincided with a seizure of the NetWire sales website by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). While the defendant in this case hasn’t yet been named publicly, the NetWire website has been leaking information about the likely true identity and location of its owner for the past 11 years.

The article details the mistakes that led to the person’s address.

Another Event-Related Spyware App

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/11/another-event-related-spyware-app.html

Last month, we were warned not to install Qatar’s World Cup app because it was spyware. This month, it’s Egypt’s COP27 Summit app:

The app is being promoted as a tool to help attendees navigate the event. But it risks giving the Egyptian government permission to read users’ emails and messages. Even messages shared via encrypted services like WhatsApp are vulnerable, according to POLITICO’s technical review of the application, and two of the outside experts.

The app also provides Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, which created it, with other so-called backdoor privileges, or the ability to scan people’s devices.

On smartphones running Google’s Android software, it has permission to potentially listen into users’ conversations via the app, even when the device is in sleep mode, according to the three experts and POLITICO’s separate analysis. It can also track people’s locations via smartphone’s built-in GPS and Wi-Fi technologies, according to two of the analysts.

Qatar Spyware

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/10/qatar-spyware.html

Everyone visiting Qatar for the World Cup needs to install spyware on their phone.

Everyone travelling to Qatar during the football World Cup will be asked to download two apps called Ehteraz and Hayya.

Briefly, Ehteraz is an covid-19 tracking app, while Hayya is an official World Cup app used to keep track of match tickets and to access the free Metro in Qatar.

In particular, the covid-19 app Ehteraz asks for access to several rights on your mobile., like access to read, delete or change all content on the phone, as well as access to connect to WiFi and Bluetooth, override other apps and prevent the phone from switching off to sleep mode.

The Ehteraz app, which everyone over 18 coming to Qatar must download, also gets a number of other accesses such as an overview of your exact location, the ability to make direct calls via your phone and the ability to disable your screen lock.

The Hayya app does not ask for as much, but also has a number of critical aspects. Among other things, the app asks for access to share your personal information with almost no restrictions. In addition, the Hayya app provides access to determine the phone’s exact location, prevent the device from going into sleep mode, and view the phone’s network connections.

Despite what the article says, I don’t know how mandatory this actually is. I know people who visited Saudi Arabia when that country had a similarly sketchy app requirement. Some of them just didn’t bother downloading the apps, and were never asked about it at the border.

Spyware Maker Intellexa Sued by Journalist

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/10/spyware-maker-intellexa-sued-by-journalist.html

The Greek journalist Thanasis Koukakis was spied on by his own government, with a commercial spyware product called “Predator.” That product is sold by a company in North Macedonia called Cytrox, which is in turn owned by an Israeli company called Intellexa.

Koukakis is suing Intellexa.

The lawsuit filed by Koukakis takes aim at Intellexa and its executive, alleging a criminal breach of privacy and communication laws, reports Haaretz. The founder of Intellexa, a former Israeli intelligence commander named Taj Dilian, is listed as one of the defendants in the suit, as is another shareholder, Sara Hemo, and the firm itself. The objective of the suit, Koukakis says, is to spur an investigation to determine whether a criminal indictment should be brought against the defendants.

Why does it always seem to be Israel? The world would be a much safer place if that government stopped this cyberweapons arms trade from inside its borders.

NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware Used against Thailand Pro-Democracy Activists and Leaders

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/07/nso-groups-pegasus-spyware-used-against-thailand-pro-democracy-activists-and-leaders.html

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.
  • The report describes the results of an ensuing collaborative investigation by the Citizen Lab, and Thai NGOs iLaw, and DigitalReach.
  • A sample of the victims was independently analyzed by Amnesty International’s Security Lab which confirms the methodology used to determine Pegasus infections.

[…]

NSO Group has denied any wrongdoing and maintains that its products are to be used “in a legal manner and according to court orders and the local law of each country.” This justification is problematic, given the presence of local laws that infringe on international human rights standards and the lack of judicial oversight, transparency, and accountability in governmental surveillance, which could result in abuses of power. In Thailand, for example, Section 112 of the Criminal Code (also known as the lèse-majesté law), which criminalizes defamation, insults, and threats to the Thai royal family, has been criticized for being “fundamentally incompatible with the right to freedom of expression,” while the amended Computer Crime Act opens the door to potential rights violations, as it “gives overly broad powers to the government to restrict free speech [and] enforce surveillance and censorship.” Both laws have been used in concert to prosecute lawyers and activists, some of whom were targeted with Pegasus.

More details. News articles.

A few months ago, Ronan Farrow wrote a really good article on NSO Group and its problems. The company was itself hacked in 2021.

L3Harris Corporation was looking to buy NSO Group, but dropped its bid after the Biden administration expressed concerns. The US government blacklisted NSO Group last year, and the company is even more toxic than it was as a result—and a mess internally.

In another story, the nephew of jailed Hotel Rwanda dissident was also hacked by Pegasus.

EDITED TO ADD (7/28): The House Intelligence Committee held hearings on what to do about this rogue industry. It’s important to remember that while NSO Group gets all the heat, there are many other companies that do the same thing.

John-Scott Railton at the hearing:

If NSO Group goes bankrupt tomorrow, there are other companies, perhaps seeded with U.S. venture capital, that will attempt to step in to fill the gap. As long as U.S. investors see the mercenary spyware industry as a growth market, the U.S. financial sector is poised to turbocharge the problem and set fire to our collective cybersecurity and privacy.

More on NSO Group and Cytrox: Two Cyberweapons Arms Manufacturers

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/12/more-on-nso-group-and-cytrox-two-cyberweapons-arms-manufacturers.html

Citizen Lab published another report on the spyware used against two Egyptian nationals. One was hacked by NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The other was hacked both by Pegasus and by the spyware from another cyberweapons arms manufacturer: Cytrox.

We haven’t heard a lot about Cytrox and its Predator spyware. According to Citzen Lab:

We conducted Internet scanning for Predator spyware servers and found likely Predator customers in Armenia, Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Madagascar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Serbia.

Cytrox was reported to be part of Intellexa, the so-called “Star Alliance of spyware,” which was formed to compete with NSO Group, and which describes itself as “EU-based and regulated, with six sites and R&D labs throughout Europe.”

In related news, Google’s Project Zero has published a detailed analysis of NSO Group’s zero-click iMessage exploit: FORCED ENTRY.

Based on our research and findings, we assess this to be one of the most technically sophisticated exploits we’ve ever seen, further demonstrating that the capabilities NSO provides rival those previously thought to be accessible to only a handful of nation states.

By the way, this vulnerability was patched on 13 Sep 2021 in iOS 14.8.

NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware Used Against US State Department Officials

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/12/nso-groups-pegasus-spyware-used-against-us-state-department-officials.html

NSO Group’s descent into Internet pariah status continues. Its Pegasus spyware was used against nine US State Department employees. We don’t know which NSO Group customer trained the spyware on the US. But the company does:

NSO Group said in a statement on Thursday that it did not have any indication their tools were used but canceled access for the relevant customers and would investigate based on the Reuters inquiry.

“If our investigation shall show these actions indeed happened with NSO’s tools, such customer will be terminated permanently and legal actions will take place,” said an NSO spokesperson, who added that NSO will also “cooperate with any relevant government authority and present the full information we will have.”