Posts tagged “FinFisher”
Citizen Lab Senior Security Researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire was featured on Wired Italy’s Top 50 People of the Year 2014. The list featured a mix of individuals such as hackers, CEOs, leading biological, politicians, and civil rights activists.
An article by The Verge on the persecution of Bahraini activists Moosa Abd-Ali Ali, Jaffar Al Hasabi, and Saeed Al-Shehabi features the Citizen Lab’s extensive analysis into FinFisher, a line of remote intrusion and surveillance software developed by Munich-based Gamma International GmbH, conducted by Senior Security Researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire and Research Fellow Bill Marzcak.
Independent Researcher Claudio Guarnieri has partnered with Privacy International, Digitale Gesellschaft, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Amnesty International to publicly release the Detekt tool, which allows journalists and human rights defenders to scan their computers for traces of known surveillance spyware.
Privacy International has filed a criminal complaint with the UK’s National Cyber Crime Unit requesting police investigation into allegations that the computer and telecommunications data of Bahraini democracy activists were subject to unlawful surveillance, which cites reports authored by Citizen Lab on the presence of FinFisher in Bahrain, as well the global proliferation of the software.
A public interest litigation case launched by CSN Partner Bytes For All (B4A) at the Lahore High Court has been met with obstacles during court proceedings. Despite a court order to look into the matter and produce a report in one month, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) has failed to do so.
This report provides a detailed analysis of two products sold for facilitating targeted surveillance known as network injection appliances. These products allow for the easy deployment of targeted surveillance implants and are being sold by commercial vendors to countries around the world. Compromising a target becomes as simple as waiting for the user to view unencrypted content on the Internet.
An article on commercial spyware in Voice of America cited Citizen Lab research into ‘lawful intercept’ spyware such as FinSpy.
Citizen Lab research into FinSpy, a suite of surveillance software marketed exclusively to governments by the Gamma Group of Companies, has helped in the recent lawsuit put forth by an American citizen living in Maryland.
What to do about the growing “Digital Arms” market? The spread of technologies like mobile phones and social networks have enabled corporations and governments to eavesdrop on a mass scale. Fulfilling the demand for surveillance tools, a range of companies now sell surveillance backdoors and vulnerabilities, described as “lawful intercept” software.
An article in the Washington Post, titled “Research shows how MacBook Webcams can spy on their users without warning,” discussed two of the Citizen Lab’s research outputs.
