NSO Group Infrastructure Linked to Targeting of Amnesty International and Saudi Dissident
Citizen Lab validates Amnesty International investigation showing targeting of staff member and Saudi activist with NSO Group’s technology.
John Scott-Railton
John Scott-Railton is a Senior Researcher at The Citizen Lab. His work focuses on technological threats civil society, including targeted malware operations, cyber militias, and online disinformation. His greatest hits include a collaboration with colleague Bill Marczak that uncovered the the systematic use of Pegasus spyware to target civil society in several countries, including Mexico and the UAE. Pegasus is developed by the Israeli cyber-warfare company NSO Group and sold exclusively to governments. That investigation also uncovered the first iPhone zero-day and remote jailbreak seen in the wild. Other investigations with Citizen Lab colleagues include the first report of ISIS-led malware operations, China's "Great Cannon," the Government of China's nation-scale DDoS attack, and the 'tainted leaks' disinformation campaigns strongly linked to the Russian Government. These investigations, and others, have served as the basis for criminal investigations and lawsuits. John has also investigated the manipulation of news aggregators such as Google News, and privacy and security issues with fitness trackers. Recently, John was a fellow at Google Ideas and Jigsaw at Alphabet. John has undergraduate degrees from the University of Chicago and a Masters from the University of Michigan. He is completing a PhD at UCLA. Previously he founded The Voices Projects, collaborative information feeds that bypassed internet shutdowns in Libya and Egypt. John's work has been covered by Time Magazine, BBC, CNN, The Washington Post, and the New York Times. He can be reached at jsr [at] citizenlab.ca
Articles
BAD TRAFFIC: Sandvine’s PacketLogic Devices Used to Deploy Government Spyware in Turkey and Redirect Egyptian Users to Affiliate Ads?
This report describes our investigation into the apparent use of Sandvine/Procera Networks Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) devices to deliver nation-state malware in Turkey and indirectly into Syria, and to covertly raise money through affiliate ads and cryptocurrency mining in Egypt.
KÖTÜ TRAFİK: Sandvine’ın PacketLogic Cihazları Türkiye’de Hükümetin Casus Program Kullanmasına, Mısır’da ise Kullanıcıları Bağlantılı Reklamlara Yönlendirmeye mi Yarıyor?
Bu rapor, Sandvine/Procera Networks Derin Veri Analizi (DPI) cihazlarının, Türkiye’de ve dolaylı olarak Suriye’de devlet menşeili kötücül yazılım yaymak; Mısır’da ise reklam ve kripto para madenciliği marifetiyle gizlice para toplamak için kullanımına yönelik araştırmamızı anlatmaktadır.
أزمة مرورية: أجهزة ساندفين باكيت لوجيك استُخدمت لنشر برامج التجسس الحكومية في تركيا وإعادة توجيه المستخدمين المصريين إلى الإعلانات التابعة لها؟
يشرح هذا التقرير تحقيقنا عن استخدام واضح لأجهزة فحص عميق للحزم (DPI) من شركة ساندفين\بروكيرا لنشر البرامج الضارة في تركيا وبشكل غير مباشر إلى سوريا، وجمع الأموال سرا من خلال الإعلانات التابعة لتعدين العملات الرقمية في مصر.
Spying on a Budget: Inside a Phishing Operation with Targets in the Tibetan Community
This report describes an inexpensive and technically simple phishing operation. It shows that the continued low adoption rates for digital security features, such as two factor authentication, contribute to the low bar to entry for digital espionage.
Fit Leaking: Citizen Lab Research on Fitness Tracker Privacy
The post covers several categories of information that can be gleaned from examining Strava’s fitness tracker data, ranging from enabling the identification of secret military facilities in “dark areas” to specific identifiable behaviour patterns of at-risk individuals.
Commercial Spyware: The Multibillion Dollar Industry Built on an Ethical and Legal Quagmire
Ethiopian’s penchant for commercial spyware is notorious, as is its pattern of digital espionage against journalists, activists, and other entities—many of which are based overseas—that seek to promote government accountability and are therefore viewed as political threats. Yet the Ethiopian government and others like it have faced little pressure to cease this particular strain of digital targeting.
Champing at the Cyberbit: Ethiopian Dissidents Targeted with New Commercial Spyware
This report describes how Ethiopian dissidents in the US, UK, and other countries were targeted with emails containing sophisticated commercial spyware posing as Adobe Flash updates and PDF plugins. Targets include a US-based Ethiopian diaspora media outlet, a PhD student, a lawyer, and even a Citizen Lab researcher.
Reckless V: Director of Mexican Anti-Corruption Group Targeted with NSO Group’s Spyware
Claudio X. González, the director of Mexicanos Contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad (MCCI: Mexicans Against Impunity and Corruption), becomes the 22nd known individual abusively targeted with NSO’s spyware technology in Mexico.
Reckless IV: Lawyers for Murdered Mexican Women’s Families Targeted with NSO Spyware
Lawyers representing the families of three slain Mexican women were sent infection attempts with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware after questioning official accounts of the killings.