Siena Anstis is a senior legal advisor at the Citizen Lab. She is a lawyer admitted to practice in Ontario and New York and a researcher in the areas of international law, human rights, technology, and migration.
She has worked as a refugee lawyer in Canada, a litigation associate at Morrison Foerster LLP in New York City, and as a judicial clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada (2015-2016) and the Court of Appeal for Ontario (2014-2015). She holds a Master of Law from the University of Cambridge (2020), a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Civil Law from McGill University (2014), and a Bachelor of Arts in journalism and anthropology from Concordia University (2009). She is currently completing a PhD in Law at the University of Oslo.
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Publications
Weaponized Words
Uyghur Language Software Hijacked to Deliver Malware
Our investigation of a spearphishing campaign that targeted senior members of the World Uyghur Congress in March 2025 reveals a highly-customized attack delivery method. The ruse used by attackers replicates a pattern in which threat actors weaponize software and websites aimed at preserving and supporting marginalized and repressed cultures to target those same communities.
Gender-Based Digital Transnational Repression and the Authoritarian Targeting of Women in the Diaspora
The Citizen Lab’s Marcus Michaelsen and Siena Anstis published a research article in the peer-reviewed journal Democratization about the gendered forms of digital threats faced by women human rights defenders and journalists in exile and in the diaspora. Click here to read the article.
Virtue or Vice? A First Look at Paragon’s Proliferating Spyware Operations
In our first investigation into Israel-based spyware company, Paragon Solutions, we begin to untangle multiple threads connected to the proliferation of Paragon’s mercenary spyware operations across the globe. This report includes an infrastructure analysis of Paragon’s spyware product, called Graphite; a forensic analysis of infected devices belonging to members of civil society; and a closer look at the use of Paragon spyware in both Canada and Italy.
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