This report performs the first public analysis of MMTLS, the main network protocol used by WeChat, an app with over one billion users. The report finds that MMTLS is a modified version of TLS, however some of the modifications have introduced cryptographic weaknesses.
Apple has decided to drop its lawsuit against commercial spyware vendor NSO Group, citing a shifting risk landscape that could risk revealing the security methods used to combat commercial surveillance tools.
We are excited to announce a new book, Chasing Shadows: Cyber Espionage, Subversion, and the Global Fight for Democracy, by Ronald Deibert, director and founder of The Citizen Lab, will hit shelves on February 4, 2025.
A sophisticated spear phishing campaign has been targeting Western and Russian civil society. In collaboration with Access Now, and with the participation of numerous civil society organizations, we uncover this operation and link it to COLDRIVER, a group attributed by multiple governments to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
The annual Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS) 2024 is underway in Bristol, UK and online, a gathering of privacy experts from around the world to discuss recent advances and new perspectives on research in privacy technologies. On July 16, former Citizen Lab Open Technology Fund (OTF) Information Controls Fellowship Program fellow Benjamin Mixon-Baca will be… Read more »
In a joint investigation with Access Now, we found that seven Russian and Belarusian-speaking independent journalists and opposition activists based in Europe were targeted and/or infected with NSO Group’s Pegasus mercenary spyware.
In this report, we examine cloud-based pinyin keyboard apps from nine vendors (Baidu, Honor, Huawei, iFlyTek, OPPO, Samsung, Tencent, Vivo, and Xiaomi) for vulnerabilities in how the apps transmit user keystrokes. Our analysis found that eight of the nine apps identified contained vulnerabilities that could be exploited to completely reveal the contents of users’ keystrokes in transit. We estimate that up to one billion users could be vulnerable to having all of their keystrokes intercepted, constituting a tremendous risk to user security.
Emile Dirks, Research Associate at the Citizen Lab, prepared a written submission for the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) about the state of human rights in the country. The CECC was established by Congress in October 2000, with the legislative mandate to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China,… Read more »
In a new study, Citizen Lab sheds light on the massive security threats facing Latin Americans. Citizen Lab and Open Technology Fund (OTF) fellow Beau Kujath in collaboration with SocialTIC finds that mobile applications in Latin America puts millions of users at a security and privacy risk. Beau’s research focuses on three types of mobile… Read more »
We confirm that two members of Serbian civil society were targeted with spyware earlier this year. Both have publicly criticized the Serbian government. We are not naming the individuals at this time by their request. The Citizen Lab’s technical analysis of forensic artifacts was conducted in support of an investigation led by Access Now in collaboration with the SHARE Foundation. Researchers from Amnesty International independently analyzed the cases and their conclusions match our findings.
