Security Affairs

DECEMBER 23, 2024

court ruled in favor of WhatsApp against NSO Group, holding the spyware vendor liable for exploiting a flaw to deliver Pegasus spyware. court over exploiting a vulnerability to deliver Pegasus spyware. In March 2024, Meta won the litigation against the Israeli spyware vendor, a U.S. This ruling is a huge win for privacy.

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Schneier on Security

DECEMBER 17, 2020

Lots of details in the article. The cyberweapons arms business is immoral in many ways. This is just one of them.

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Schneier on Security

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

.” 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.

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Schneier on Security

OCTOBER 18, 2022

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.

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Spyware Mobile 357

Security Affairs

DECEMBER 3, 2024

Poland probes Pegasus spyware abuse under the PiS government; ex-security chief Piotr Pogonowski arrested to testify before parliament. Poland’s government has been investigating the alleged misuse of Pegasus spyware by the previous administration and arrested the former head of Poland’s internal security service Piotr Pogonowski.

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Schneier on Security

OCTOBER 18, 2023

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.

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Security Affairs

DECEMBER 16, 2024

Researchers warn of previously undetected surveillance spyware, named NoviSpy, that was found infecting a Serbian journalist’s phone. The spyware’s deployment relied on Cellebrite’s unlocking process, combining two invasive technologies to compromise the journalists digital privacy comprehensively.

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Schneier on Security

JULY 11, 2024

Not a lot of details : Apple has issued a new round of threat notifications to iPhone users across 98 countries, warning them of potential mercenary spyware attacks. It’s the second such alert campaign from the company this year, following a similar notification sent to users in 92 nations in April.

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Schneier on Security

DECEMBER 13, 2021

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. NSO Group’s descent into Internet pariah status continues. ”

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Schneier on Security

DECEMBER 24, 2024

A judge has found that NSO Group, maker of the Pegasus spyware, has violated the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by hacking WhatsApp in order to spy on people using it. Jon Penney and I wrote a legal paper on the case.

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Security Affairs

FEBRUARY 2, 2025

Meta announced the disruption of a malware campaign via WhatsApp that targeted journalists with the Paragon spyware. Meta announced that discovered and dismantled a malware campaign via WhatsApp that targeted journalists and civil society members with the Paragon spyware (aka Graphite). In 2024, its U.S.

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Schneier on Security

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

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.

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Schneier on Security

JUNE 8, 2023

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.

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Spyware 295

Schneier on Security

MARCH 21, 2023

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

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Schneier on Security

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

Kaspersky says: “This is the first known case of an app infected with OCR spyware being found in Apple’s official app marketplace.” Based on their assessment, infected Google Play apps have been downloaded more than 242,000 times. ” That’s a tactic I have not heard of before.

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Malware Spyware 252

Schneier on Security

OCTOBER 7, 2022

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.

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Security Affairs

MARCH 19, 2025

WhatsApp fixed a zero-click, zero-day vulnerability used to install Paragon’s Graphite spyware on the devices of targeted individuals. WhatsApp has addressed a zero-click, zero-day vulnerability exploited to install Paragon’s Graphite spyware on the devices of targeted individuals.

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Security Affairs

NOVEMBER 1, 2024

New LightSpy spyware targets iPhones supporting destructive features that can block compromised devices from booting up. In May 2024, ThreatFabric researchers discovered a macOS version of LightSpy spyware that has been active in the wild since at least January 2024. The updated iOS version (7.9.0) The updated iOS version (7.9.0)

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Security Affairs

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Researchers found an updated LightSpy spyware with enhanced data collection features targeting social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. have found an updated version of the LightSpy spyware that supports an expanded set of data collection features to target social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

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Data collection Spyware Media Surveillance 101

Schneier on Security

OCTOBER 25, 2021

Citizen Lab is that a New York Times journalist was hacked with the NSO Group’s spyware Pegasus, probably by the Saudis. The world needs to do something about these cyberweapons arms manufacturers. This kind of thing isn’t enough; NSO Group is an Israeli company.

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Security Affairs

APRIL 23, 2025

A new Android spyware was discovered in a fake Alpine Quest app, reportedly used by Russian soldiers for war zone planning. Doctor Web researchers uncovered a new spyware, tracked as Android.Spy.1292.origin, Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini ( SecurityAffairs hacking,Android spyware)

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Tech Republic Security

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

It’s a cat-and-mouse struggle as tech giants Microsoft and Apple deal with persistent threats from China state actors and Pegasus spyware.

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Schneier on Security

DECEMBER 20, 2021

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.

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Manufacturing Spyware Hacking Internet 360

Security Affairs

MARCH 13, 2025

North Korea-linked APT group ScarCruft used a new Android spyware dubbed KoSpy to target Korean and English-speaking users. Lookout researchers attributed the spyware to the ScarCruft group with medium confidence. The spyware uses a unique IT for each victim that is calculated through a hardware fingerprint.

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Security Boulevard

APRIL 8, 2025

Twenty-one countries signed onto the Pall Mall Process, an effort a year in the making that was created to develop a framework nations could adopt to address the proliferation and malicious use of spyware by governments that want it to track human rights workers, activists, journalists, and other such targets.

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Malwarebytes

MARCH 20, 2025

Experts are again warning about the proliferating market for targeted spyware and espionage. Before we dive into the world of targeted spyware, it’s worth looking at a few of the main players that are active in and against this industry. The name of Paragons spyware is Graphite.

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Schneier on Security

MAY 24, 2024

New paper: “ Zero Progress on Zero Days: How the Last Ten Years Created the Modern Spyware Market “: Abstract: Spyware makes surveillance simple. The last ten years have also been marked by stark failures to control spyware and its precursors and components.

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Schneier on Security

AUGUST 3, 2021

Forbes has the story : Paragon’s product will also likely get spyware critics and surveillance experts alike rubbernecking: It claims to give police the power to remotely break into encrypted instant messaging communications, whether that’s WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook Messenger or Gmail, the industry sources said.

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Schneier on Security

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

Piling more on NSO Group’s legal troubles, Apple is suing it : The complaint provides new information on how NSO Group infected victims’ devices with its Pegasus spyware. NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware is favored by totalitarian governments around the world, who use it to hack Apple phones and computers.

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Tech Republic Security

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

In a new report from Google's Threat Analysis Group, the researchers detail how commercial surveillance vendors particularly use spyware and target Google and Apple devices.

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Security Affairs

APRIL 8, 2025

In March 2025, WhatsApp addressed a zero-click, zero-day vulnerability exploited to install Paragons Graphite spyware on the devices of targeted individuals. WhatsApp blocked a spyware campaign by Paragon targeting journalists and civil society members after reports of the Citizen Lab group from the University of Toronto.

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Tech Republic Security

APRIL 12, 2024

Apple recommends that iPhone users install software updates, use strong passwords and 2FA, and don’t open links or attachments from suspicious emails to keep their device safe from spyware.

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Schneier on Security

SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

Citizen Lab released a report on a zero-click iMessage exploit that is used in NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. Apple patched the vulnerability; everyone needs to update their OS immediately. News articles on the exploit.

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Penetration Testing

MARCH 3, 2024

The operators behind the invasive Predator mobile spyware remain undeterred by public exposure and scrutiny.

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Schneier on Security

APRIL 25, 2023

Following a report on its activities , the Israeli spyware company QuaDream has shut down. We also identify traces of a suspected iOS 14 zero-click exploit used to deploy QuaDream’s spyware. Victims include journalists, political opposition figures, and an NGO worker. We are not naming the victims at this time. and 14.4.2,

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Schneier on Security

APRIL 6, 2022

This is the spyware company whose products were used, among other things, to spy on Turkish and Bahraini political opposition. FinFisher has shut down operations.

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Malwarebytes

MARCH 7, 2024

The US Treasury Department has sanctioned Predator spyware vendor Intellexa Consortium, and banned the company from doing business in the US. Intellexa is based in Greece but the Treasury Department imposed the sanctions because of the use of the spyware against Americans, including US government officials, journalists, and policy experts.

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