Security News
Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday released new findings that reveal a year-long mobile espionage campaign against the Kurdish ethnic group to deploy two Android backdoors that masquerade as legitimate apps. Active since at least March 2020, the attacks leveraged as many as six dedicated Facebook profiles that claimed to provide news, two of which were aimed at Android users while the other four shared pro-Kurd content, only to share spying apps on Facebook public groups.
A never-before-seen, zero-click iMessaging exploit has been allegedly used to illegally spy on Bahraini activists with NSO Group's Pegasus spyware, according to cybersecurity watchdog Citizen Lab.The digital researchers are calling the new iMessaging exploit FORCEDENTRY. In a report published on Tuesday, researchers said that they've identified nine Bahraini activists whose iPhones were inflicted with Pegasus spyware between June 2020 and February 2021.
Digital threat researchers at Citizen Lab have uncovered a new zero-click iMessage exploit used to deploy NSO Group's Pegasus spyware on devices belonging to Bahraini activists. The spyware was deployed on their devices after being compromised using two zero-click iMessage exploits: the 2020 KISMET exploit and a new never-before-seen exploit dubbed FORCEDENTRY. New iPhone zero-click exploit in use since February 2021.
Human rights experts working with the United Nations on Thursday called on countries to pause the sale and transfer of spyware and other surveillance technology until they set rules governing its use, to ensure it won't impinge upon human rights. The experts, speaking out in the wake of new Pegasus spyware revelations, expressed concern that "Highly sophisticated intrusive tools are being used to monitor, intimidate and silence human rights defenders, journalists and political opponents" in some places, the U.N. human rights office said.
A threat actor presumed to be of Chinese origin has been linked to a series of 10 attacks targeting Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, Canada, and the U.S. from January to July 2021 that involve the deployment of a remote access trojan on infected systems, according to new research. The group is a "China-nexus cyber espionage actor focused on obtaining information that can provide the Chinese government and state-owned enterprises with political, economic, and military advantages," according to FireEye.
The Oregon state employee pension fund is one of the largest investors, if not the largest, having committed $233 million to Novalpina Capital, the private equity firm, in 2017. Novalpina Capital has been saddled with both an internal dispute among its founding partners and an explosive report showing NSO Group's spyware has been widely misused around the globe.
Israel's Ministry of Defense says the nation's government has visited spyware-for-governments developer NSO Group to investigate allegations its wares have been widely - and perhaps willingly - misused. The allegations were raised by Amnesty International and a consortium of newspapers that gained access to a 50,000-entry list of mobile phone numbers claimed to have been touched by NSO's Pegasus product - spyware that makes a smartphone an open book.
French lawmakers have launched an investigation into Israeli offensive cybersecurity company NSO Group after they learned French President Emmanuel Macron topped a list of 14 heads of states potentially targeted by the company's spyware. The world leaders were potential targets, according to a list of 50,000 phone numbers believed linked to the NSO Group and leaked to Amnesty International and the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories.
French President Emmanuel Macron leads a list of 14 current or former heads of state who may have been targeted for hacking by clients of the notorious Israeli spyware firm NSO Group, Amnesty International said Tuesday. Among potential targets found on a list of 50,000 phone numbers leaked to Amnesty and the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories include Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and Barham Salih of Iraq.
News of a zero-click zero-day in Apple's iMessage feature being incorporated into the notorious Pegasus mobile spyware from NSO Group has drawn a variety of reactions from the security community, including concerns about the security of Apple's closed ecosystem, and varying views on NSO Group's culpability for how Pegasus is used. He added, "Apple aims their statements about security and privacy at consumers. However, the majority of the individuals targeted by the NSO group are not categorized as typical consumers and Apple needs to recognize that securing these individuals may require help from third parties."