Spyware

New York, August 22, 2019–Israeli officials confirmed that, under a rule change by the Defense Ministry, Israeli surveillance companies are able to obtain exemptions on marketing license for the sale of some products to certain countries, Reuters reported today. It is not clear which companies, and which products, were impacted; however, Reuters reported that the…

On June 18, more than 400 people converged in Mexico City for CPJ’s Mexico Press Freedom Summit. Energized by a sense that the country is at a point of profound political change under the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the conference delved into the threats for Mexican journalists.

In March 2015, Hicham Mansouri emailed an anti-malware company, suspicious of possible signs that someone was able to access his device remotely, without permission. He remembers exchanging a few messages with the software company, but the correspondence was interrupted after a few days, when around 10 police officers in civilian clothes arrived at his home…

[EDITOR’S NOTE: See CPJ’s updated safety advisory here https://cpj-preprod.go-vip.net/2019/11/cpj-safety-advisory-journalist-targets-of-pegasus-.php.] New York, May 14, 2019–A vulnerability that infects phones with spyware has been identified in the messaging app WhatsApp, according to reports. The attack targets users of Android and iPhone and involves calling users over WhatsApp. Those targeted report receiving a series of missed calls from…

New York, May 10, 2019–The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned a cyberattack on Mexicanos Contra La Corrupción y Impunidad (MCCI), a Mexican nonprofit news outlet that publishes in-depth investigations into corruption in Mexico and Latin America.

Entering the terms “NSO Group,” “journalists,” and “spying” into a Google search from a workstation in New York City recently produced a sponsored search result at the top of the page. The NSO Group manufactures some of the world’s most sophisticated and high-profile spyware, and its sponsored link invites readers to a slick website touting…

Mexico City, March 20, 2019–Griselda Triana, the widow of slain Mexican journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas, was targeted by spyware identified as Pegasus in 2017 in an apparent spying attempt, according to a new report released today by Canadian research group Citizen Lab.

New York, January 30, 2019–At least four journalists were surveilled under Project Raven, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) cybersurveillance and hacking operation, Reuters reported today. The UAE hired former U.S. National Security Agency employees to assist in deploying a surveillance tool called Karma that exploited a vulnerability in the iPhone’s messaging application, according to a…

Omar Abdulaziz, a 27-year-old Saudi Arabian dissident, can still remember the time Jamal Khashoggi, the storied Saudi journalist, unfollowed him on Twitter. It was in 2015, and Khashoggi had been tapped to head a new TV network called Al-Arab, a partnership between a member of the royal family and Bloomberg. Abdulaziz started haranguing Khashoggi online,…

On January 10, radio journalists Darsema Sori and Khalid Mohammed were released from prison after serving lengthy sentences related to their work at the Ethiopian faith-based station Radio Bilal. Despite their release and Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s promise earlier this month to free political prisoners, Ethiopia’s use of imprisonment, harassment, and surveillance means that the…