WhatsApp Alerts 200 Users After Fake iOS App Installed Spyware; Italian Firm Faces Action

Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp said it alerted about 200 users who were tricked into installing a bogus version of its iOS app that was infected with spyware. According to reports from Italian newspaper La Repubblica and news agency ANSA, the vast majority of the targets are located in...

Jeffrey Epstein’s Yahoo Inbox Revealed

Plus: ICE deploys secretive phone surveillance tech, officials warn of Chinese surveillance tools in US highway infrastructure, and more...

Surveillance in the US

Good article from 404 Media on the cozy surveillance relationship between local Oregon police and ICE: In the email thread, crime analysts from several local police departments and the FBI introduced themselves to each other and made lists of surveillance tools and tactics they have access to and...

Predator spyware vendor banned in US

The US Treasury Department has sanctioned Predator spyware vendor Intellexa Consortium, and banned the company from doing business in the US. Predator can turn infected smartphones into surveillance devices. Intellexa is based in Greece but the Treasury Department imposed the sanctions because of...

The UK Is GPS-Tagging Thousands of Migrants

Ankle tags that constantly log a person’s coordinates are part of a growing cadre of experimental surveillance tools that countries around the world are trying out on new arrivals...

Mercenary mayhem: A technical analysis of Intellexa's PREDATOR spyware

We would like to thank The Citizen Lab for their cooperation, support and inputs into this research. Commercial spyware use is on the rise, with actors leveraging these sophisticated tools to conduct surveillance operations against a growing number of targets. Cisco Talos has new details of a...

Iran’s Digital Surveillance Tools Leaked

Its Irans turn to have its digital surveillance tools leaked: According to these internal documents, SIAM is a computer system that works behind the scenes of Iranian cellular networks, providing its operators a broad menu of remote commands to alter, disrupt, and monitor how customers use their...

Israel Bans Sales of Hacking and Surveillance Tools to 65 Countries

Israel's Ministry of Defense has dramatically restricted the number of countries to which cybersecurity firms operating in the nation are allowed to sell offensive hacking and surveillance tools to, cutting off 65 nations from the export list. The revised list, details of which were first reporte...

The NYPD Had a Secret Fund for Surveillance Tools

Documents reveal that police bought facial-recognition software, vans equipped with x-ray machines, and “stingray” cell site simulators—with no public oversight...

Police Surveillance Tools from Special Services Group

Special Services Group, a company that sells surveillance tools to the FBI, DEA, ICE, and other US government agencies, has had its secret sales brochure published. Motherboard received the brochure as part of a FOIA request to the Irvine Police Department in California. "The Tombstone Cam is our...

Powerful Android and iOS Spyware Found Deployed in 45 Countries

One of the world's most dangerous Android and iPhone spyware program has been found deployed against targets across 45 countries around the world over the last two years, a new report from Citizen Lab revealed. The infamous spyware, dubbed Pegasus, is developed by NSO Group—an Israeli company whi...

Security Risks of Government Hacking

Some of us -- myself included -- have proposed lawful government hacking as an alternative to backdoors. A new report from the Center of Internet and Society looks at the security risks of allowing government hacking. They include: Disincentive for vulnerability disclosure Cultivation of a market...

Israeli Firm Offering WiFi Interception Service to Law Enforcement Agencies

By Waqas Israel has some most advanced surveillance tools industry and at the This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Israeli Firm Offering WiFi Interception Service to Law Enforcement Agencies...

British Intelligence Agency Can Hack Any Smartphone With Just a Text Message

Former NSA contractor and global surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden told the BBC investigative programme Panorama Monday night that the British intelligence agency GCHQ has powers to hack any smartphones without their owners' knowledge. You heard right. The British Spying Agency have speci...

Hacking Team Spyware preloaded with UEFI BIOS Rootkit to Hide Itself

Last Week someone just hacked the infamous Hacking Team, The Italy-based cyber weapons manufacturer and leaked a huge trove of 400GB internal data, including: Emails Hacking tools Zero-day exploits Surveillance tools Source code for Spyware A spreadsheet listing every government client with date ...

BIOS Rootkit Implant Debuts at CanSecWest

When the National Security Agency’s ANT division catalog of surveillance tools was disclosed among the myriad of Snowden revelations, its desire to implant malware into the BIOS of targeted machines was unquestionable. While there’s little evidence of BIOS bootkits in the wild, the ANT catalog an...

Jacob Appelbaum 2013 30c3 keynote on NSA Surveillance

Cryptographer, developer and activist Jacob Appelbaum took to the pages of Germany’s Der Spiegel and the keynote dais of the 30th Chaos Communication Congress this weekend to deliver a damning expose of the catalog of backdoors, monitoring programs and products that potentially have and could be...

Report Predicts Huge Hike in Employers Monitoring Social Media

In addition to watching what you say at the office, you may want to be extra careful what you post about work on blogs, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. This admonishment is not new, but a Gartner report predicts up to 60 percent of corporations worldwide will monitor employees’ social media use fo...

Executives Abroad May Get Owned Before They're Off The Tarmac

Corporate executives and other high value employees traveling abroad need to be on guard for attempts to compromise their mobile devices, and could even have their mobile phone compromised before they even disembark the plane following their arrival, according to security researcher Justin...