Citizen Lab’s research were featured in programs on Middle Eastern democracy by Alhurra and the world of online mercenaries offering hacking services by VICE, respectively.

Privacy International (PI) latest report, entitled “The President’s Men?,” explores the role of Egypt’s Technical Research Department (TRD), a secret unit in the country’s intelligence infrastructure. In the report, PI cite Citizen Lab research on FinFisher and Hacking Team.

Citizen Lab Senior Research Fellow Bill Marczak spoke to ABC Australia regarding the proxy server for the remote intrusion software FinFisher found in Sydney, Australia.

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

This post describes the results of Internet scanning we recently conducted to identify the users of FinFisher, a sophisticated and user-friendly spyware suite sold exclusively to governments. We devise a method for querying FinFisher’s “anonymizing proxies” to unmask the true location of the spyware’s master servers. Since the master servers are installed on the premises of FinFisher customers, tracing the servers allows us to identify which governments are likely using FinFisher. In some cases, we can trace the servers to specific entities inside a government by correlating our scan results with publicly available sources.

In an article entitled “Fishing in troubled waters,” Pakistan’s English newspaper DAWN highlighted issues surrounding surveillance and cyber crime in the country.

The Lahore High Court in Pakistan is set to hear a case regarding the discovery of spyware suite FinFisher in the country. The lawsuit, brought by Cyber Steward Partner Bytes for All, contends that the government contravened the Privacy Act by indiscriminately spying on its citizens.

The OECD concluded that Gamma International had failed to act consistently their guidelines, which require businesses to do appropriate due diligence in their operations, ensuring that negative human rights effects are avoided.

Deutsche Welle reported that German state prosecutors have started preliminary investigations into whether the German-developed spy software FinFisher is being used by foreign intelligence agencies against targets inside Germany.