For more than a decade, dozens of journalists and human rights activists have been targeted and hacked by governments all over the world. Cops and spies in Ethiopia, Greece, Hungary, India, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates, among others, have used sophisticated spyware to compromise the phones of these victims, who at times have also faced real-world violence being intimidated, harassed, and in extreme cases, even murdered.
In the last few years, in the fight to protect these higher-risk communities, a team of a dozen digital security experts, mostly based in Costa Rica, Manila, and Tunisia, among other places, have played a key role. They work for the New York-headquartered nonprofit Access Now, specifically its Digital Security Helpline.
Read more…
Source: TechCrunch News
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Spyware firm SpyFone leaves customer data, recordings exposed online
August 24, 2018
Spyware is morally dubious software, and yet, business is booming. This particular form of malware comes in various forms including keyloggers, modular software capable of taking screenshots, malicious code able to view and steal content such as photos and videos, as well as recorders of text messages, phone calls, and browser histories. It is not just government entities or ...
- Spy malware secrets: How complex ‘Slingshot’ hit targets via hacked routers
March 12, 2018
Researchers at Kaspersky Lab have discovered espionage malware that appears to have been developed by a government to spy on targets across Africa and the Middle East for the past six years. The researchers haven’t named Slingshot’s country of origin, but note the presence of debug messages written in perfect English, while various component names such ...
- Undetectable CrossRAT malware targets Windows, MacOS, and Linux systems
January 28, 2018
Are you using Linux or Mac OS? If you think your system is not prone to viruses, then you should read this. Wide-range of cybercriminals are now using a new piece of ‘undetectable’ spying malware that targets Windows, macOS, Solaris and Linux systems. Just last week we published a detailed article on the report from EFF/Lookout that revealed a ...
- Over 500 Android Apps On Google Play Store Found Spying On 100 Million Users
August 22, 2017
Over 500 different Android apps that have been downloaded more than 100 million times from the official Google Play Store found to be infected with a malicious ad library that secretly distributes spyware to users and can perform dangerous operations. Since 90 per cent of Android apps is free to download from Google Play Store, advertising ...