{"id":9116,"date":"2020-06-25T22:02:40","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T19:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.media\/?p=9116"},"modified":"2020-06-26T19:08:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T16:08:02","slug":"amnesty-tech-exec-nso-groups-malicious-spyware-is-enabling-state-sponsored-repression-of-human-rights-defenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/amnesty-tech-exec-nso-groups-malicious-spyware-is-enabling-state-sponsored-repression-of-human-rights-defenders\/","title":{"rendered":"Amnesty Tech Exec: NSO Group\u2019s Malicious Spyware Is Enabling State-Sponsored Repression of Human Rights Defenders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amnesty Tech, a global collective of researchers, hackers, and advocates campaigning for human rights, has claimed<\/a> that Israeli tech company NSO Group committed a government-backed surveillance operation over journalists.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

According to Amnesty\u2019s latest investigation into the event, the government of Morocco used NSO\u2019s technology to spy on Moroccan journalist Omar Radi, wherein Radi\u2019s phone had been attacked with NSO\u2019s Pegasus spyware. The software in question is designed to enable concerned parties to remotely spy on smartphones.<\/p>\n

Tech That Abuses Human Rights<\/h2>\n

Radi faced the Moroccan authorities\u2019 scrutiny for his journalistic work and activism, and for his fierce criticism of the government\u2019s human rights record in particular. Radi brought about the issue of corruption and links between corporate and political interests in Morocco. Eventually, Radi was sentenced for four months in prison for a message he tweeted last year criticizing \u201cthe unfair trial of a group of activists.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to an analysis by Amnesty Tech, Radi\u2019s phone was subject to a series of \u201cnetwork injection\u201d attacks, which allowed the concerned parties to monitor, intercept, and manipulate his Internet traffic. Using Pegasus, the attacker can get access to the target\u2019s phone\u2019s camera, microphone, calls, messages, contacts, among other things.<\/p>\n

Although NSO claims<\/a> it provides “authorized governments with technology that helps them combat terror and crime,” the company\u2019s technology has been repeatedly accused of human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

Danna Ingleton, deputy director of Amnesty Tech said that NSO can not be trusted and should be banned from selling its products to governments, who subsequently deploy it for human rights abuses. NSO\u2019s contribution to those abuses came in the form of keeping the government on as an active customer until at least January 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven after being presented with chilling evidence of its spyware being used to track activists in Morocco, it appears that NSO chose to keep the Moroccan government on as a customer. If NSO won\u2019t stop its technology from being used in abuses, then it should be banned from selling it to governments who are likely to use it for human rights abuses,\u201d <\/i><\/b>said Ingleton.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Legal Battles Against NSO Group<\/h2>\n

Back in 2017, Mexican activists, human rights lawyers, and journalists filed<\/a> a criminal complaint after learning that their smartphones had been attacked with Pegasus spyware. According to a report cited by the parties, the attorney general\u2019s office and the defense ministry were among government organizations that purchased the software.<\/p>\n

As forklog.media previously reported, Facebook and its subsidiary WhatsApp are fighting in court with NSO Group<\/a>, claiming that the firm used WhatsApp to facilitate spyware distribution.<\/p>\n

According to WhatsApp\u2019s research, the messenger\u2019s video call service was exploited to implant malicious code into the user\u2019s mobile devices. Around 1,400 users were targeted by the attack. It turned out that among these users were journalists, human rights activists, and dissidents.<\/p>\n

Facebook and WhatsApp claim that NSO Group violated the messenger\u2019s Terms of Service, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and \u0441ertain other laws. In return, NSO Group said that they had nothing to do with the attack and the ways their clients use the software.<\/p>\n

Follow us on <\/b>Twitter<\/b><\/a> and <\/b>Facebook<\/b><\/a> and join our <\/b>Telegram channel<\/b><\/a> to know what\u2019s up with crypto and why it\u2019s important.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amnesty Tech, a global collective of researchers, hackers, and advocates campaigning for human rights, has claimed that Israeli tech company NSO Group committed a government-backed surveillance operation over journalists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"human_written","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[611,100,773,1113],"class_list":["post-9116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-facebook","tag-malware","tag-smartphones","tag-surveillance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"535","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9119,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9116\/revisions\/9119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}