The use of remote surveillance software against activists has been a feature of the ongoing conflict in Syria. Today, the EFF and Citizen Lab report on the use of a new toolkit by a previously observed attacker. This actor has been circulating malware which surreptitiously installs BlackShades RAT on victims machines.

Security Researcher and Citizen Lab Technical Advisor Morgan Marquis-Boire warns that this Trojan has been specifically crafted to target people attempting to evade government censorship. This blog post is written in Farsi.

Security Researcher and Citizen Lab Technical Advisor Morgan Marquis-Boire warns that this Trojan has been specifically crafted to target people attempting to evade government censorship. Last updated: May 30.

Citizen Lab Senior Researcher Helmi Noman was interviewed in an article published as part of the Perugia International Journalism Festival on the activities of the Syrian Electronic Army.

Citizen Lab’s new report, The Canadian Connection: An investigation of Syrian government and Hezbullah web hosting in Canada was featured in numerous media, including the Globe and Mail.

A new report, entitled The Canadian Connection: An investigation of Syrian government and Hezbullah web hosting in Canada, continues Citizen Lab research into the intersection of the private sector, authoritarianism, and cyberspace regulation, turning our attention to a component of the Internet that does not typically receive the same amount of attention as filtering, surveillance, and computer network attack products and services: web hosting services.

Following the release of Citizen Lab’s brief, Behind Blue Coat: Investigations of commercial filtering in Syria and Burma, Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert spoke to Marco Werman about the research findings on BBC’s The World.

Although Blue Coat has recently acknowledged the presence of their devices in Syria, this brief contributes to previous findings of devices in the country, documents additional devices in use in Syria, and identifies Blue Coat devices actively in use in Burma.

Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert was featured in BBC Arabic 4 Tech programme in a discussion about a collective of pro-Assad hackers and online activists, who call themselves the Syrian Electronic Army.

Director Ron Deibert joined Al Jazeera’s The Stream via Skype to talk about a collective of pro-Assad hackers and online activists, who call themselves the Syrian Electronic Army.

Read the article and watch the video here.