You may not know it, but NSO Group is far from the only company offering its tailor-made mobile hacking services. A new investigation by Citizen Lab reveals the scale of another program of its kind, called… Predator. You can't make it up. Its developer? A company called Cytrox, also based, unsurprisingly, in Israel.
The software has already claimed several important victims, including a political refugee and a TV presenter, both Egyptians. Ayman Nour, from the opposition to the ruling power, was even allegedly monitored by several government actors at the same time. Its operating system at the time was iOS, although sold by its publisher as more secure than Android alternatives.
Several countries already customers!
According to Citizen Lab's investigations, no less than eight states have to date got their hands on Predator, their precise motivations obviously remaining to be defined. Those responsible in question here would be Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, Serbia, Greece, Madagascar, Armenia, Indonesia and therefore Egypt. So many regions where authoritarian excesses are commonplace.
The method used by this spyware to hack the journalist's iPhone is apparently the same as that used to access the content of that of Jeff Bezos. As a reminder, this is a simple WhatsApp message from a stranger and containing a corrupted link. On which the target therefore clicked, which is totally not recommended to do in this type of case. But it is not always easy to know this depending on the generation…
What data is at risk?
The Citizen Lab report explains that many Apple services are accessible by Predator, including the proprietary Safari browser, the App Store, Maps and even more sensitive ones like Camera and Mail. Worse: certain messaging services supposed to be end-to-end encrypted such as Signal and Telegram are also affected, a sign that even such alternatives are never 100% secure.
If you also fear being scanned by a spy program one day, know that there are some strategies to protect yourself from possible harmful consequences.Find it right here.
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By : Keleops AG
