February 26 – New York City

January 21- Arlington, Virginia

This report describes an extensive malware, phishing, and disinformation campaign active in several Latin American countries, including Ecuador, Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil. The nature and geographic spread of the targets seems to point to a sponsor, or sponsors, with regional, political interests. The attackers, whom we have named Packrat, have shown a keen and systematic interest in the political opposition and the independent press in so-called ALBA countries (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas), and their recently allied regimes.

A number of journalists, activists, politicians, and public figures in Latin America have been targeted by a large-scale hacking campaign since 2008, according to a new report from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab.

Citizen Lab surveillance research on Hacking Team and FinFisher highlighted in articles on Motherboard, the Varsity, and the New York Times.

Freedom House has released their “Freedom on the Net 2015” report, placing China at the bottom of a ranking comprising 65 countries. The report cites the Citizen Lab’s research on China, specifically on chat application censorship and targeted threats.

A second audit of South Korea’s Smart Sheriff application reveals that there are numerous unresolved vulnerabilities that put minor children and parental users of the application at serious risk.

Citizen Lab Cyber Stewards Network partner EngageMedia co-hosted a public forum in Bangkok on October 17, together with the Foundation for Internet and Civic Culture, discussing the pending Internet laws in Thailand.

This report provides a detailed, mixed methods analysis of Information controls related to the Yemen armed conflict, with research commencing at the end of 2014 and continuing through October 20, 2015. The research confirms that Internet filtering products sold by the Canadian company Netsweeper have been installed on and are presently in operation in the state-owned and operated ISP YemenNet, the most utilized ISP in the country.

This report analyzes a campaign of targeted attacks against an NGO working on environmental issues in Southeast Asia. Our analysis reveals connections between these attacks, recent strategic web compromises against Burmese government websites, and previous campaigns targeting groups in the Tibetan community.