This report investigates the surveillance capabilities of IMSI Catchers, efforts by states to prevent information relating to IMSI Catchers from entering the public record, and the legal and policy frameworks that govern the use of these devices. The report principally focuses on Canadian agencies but, to do so, draws comparative examples from other jurisdictions. The report concludes with a series of recommended transparency and control mechanisms that are designed to properly contain the use of the devices and temper their more intrusive features.

This report describes how a government targeted an internationally recognized human rights defender, Ahmed Mansoor, with the Trident, a chain of zero-day exploits designed to infect his iPhone with sophisticated commercial spyware.

In this report we analyze Windows and Android versions of web browser UC Browser, and find they transmitted personally identifiable information with easily decryptable encryption and were vulnerable to arbitrary code execution during software updates

This report describes a malware operation against the Syrian Opposition. We name the operator Group5, and suspect they have not been previously-reported. Group5 used “just enough” technical sophistication, combined with social engineering, to target computers and mobile phones with malware.

The following is a statement from Citizen Lab Director, Ron Deibert, concerning a defamation suit recently filed, and then discontinued by Netsweeper against the University of Toronto and Ron Deibert.

The DIY Transparency Report tool helps smaller organizations produce holistic transparency reports. Such reports comprehensively explain to customers, citizens, and government agencies alike how an organization can, and does, receive and respond to government requests. It does so by guiding organizational members through the process of developing a holistic report, while empowering them to customize their reports to reflect their organizational profile.

This report describes a campaign of targeted spyware attacks carried out by a sophisticated operator, which we call Stealth Falcon. The attacks have been conducted from 2012 until the present, against Emirati journalists, activists, and dissidents.

In “Chilling Effects: Online Surveillance and Wikipedia Use,” Citizen Lab Research Fellow Jon Penney analyzes the fall of traffic to Wikipedia articles about terror groups and their techniques after the Snowden revelations.

In this research note, we analyze a malware campaign targeting Hong Kong democracy activists. Two new malware families are used in the campaign that we name UP007 and SLServer. Previous reports have shown overlap in the tactics, tools, and procedures used in this campaign in other operations targeting groups in Burma, Hong Kong, and the Tibetan community.

Citizen Lab research partner Open Effect today announced the release of the full report detailing our year-long research collaboration into the privacy and security of wearable fitness tracking devices.