dryriver writes: The 2010s were not necessarily the greatest decade to live through. AAA computer games were not only DRM’d and internet tethered to death but became increasingly formulaic and pay-to-win driven, and poor quality console ports pissed off PC gamers. Forced software subscriptions for major software products you could previously buy became a thing. Personal privacy went out the window…
Tag: spyware
Antivirus Vendors and Non-Profits Join To Form ‘Coalition Against Stalkerware’
Ten organizations today announced the creation of the Coalition Against Stalkerware, the first global initiative of its kind, with the sole purpose of fighting against stalkerware. From a report: Also known as spouseware, stalkerware is a smaller category of the spyware class. Stalkerware refers to apps that abusive partners install on the devices of their loved ones without their knowledge or…
Facebook Permanently Deletes the Accounts of NSO Workers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A day after Facebook-owned WhatsApp sued NSO Group, the social media platform has permanently deleted the accounts of employees who work at the Israel-based spyware maker, according to message boards and a security researcher who spoke to one worker. “Your account has been deleted for not following our terms,” said a message…
Israeli Spyware Firm NSO Group is Wildly Profitable Despite Concerns Over Misuse of its Technology, Leaked Financials Show
An anonymous reader shares a report: The secretive Israeli spyware company NSO Group gained notoriety following allegations that its hacking tool Pegasus was used by governments like Saudi Arabia and Mexico to track dissidents and journalists. A few months later, the company was acquired for $1 billion by its cofounders Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie alongside the private equity firm Novalpina…
Police Hijack a Botnet and Remotely Kill 850,000 Malware Infections
In a rare feat, French police have hijacked and neutralized a massive cryptocurrency mining botnet controlling close to a million infected computers. From a report: The notorious Retadup malware infects computers and starts mining cryptocurrency by sapping power from a computer’s processor. Although the malware was used to generate money, the malware operators easily could have run other malicious code, like…
Apple Patches iPhone Jailbreaking Bug
Apple has released today an iOS security update to patch a bug the company accidentally un-patched in an earlier release, introducing a security weakness that allowed hackers to craft new jailbreaks for current iOS versions. From a report: The original bug, discovered by Ned Williamson, a Google Project Zero security engineer, allows a malicious app to exploit a “user-after-free” vulnerability and…
Freelance Site Fiverr Offers Illegal Private Spying Services
Freelancer site Fiverr is where a company can hire a short term app developer, a logo designer, or someone to help with their social media accounts. Fiverr is also a site where you can buy malware to illegally spy on your spouse, pay someone to place a GPS tracker on a car, or hire an unlicensed private investigator, Motherboard reported Monday,…
NSO Spyware ‘Targets Big Tech Cloud Services’
The Israeli company whose spyware hacked WhatsApp has told buyers its technology can surreptitiously scrape all of an individual’s data from the servers of Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, Financial Times reported on Friday. [Editor’s note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source] From the report: NSO Group’s flagship smartphone malware, nicknamed Pegasus, has for years been used by spy…
Microsoft Stirs Suspicions By Adding Telemetry Files To Security-Only Update
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: As expected, Windows Update dropped off several packages of security and reliability fixes for Windows 7 earlier this week, part of the normal Patch Tuesday delivery cycle for every version of Windows. But some hawk-eyed observers noted a surprise in one of those Windows 7 packages. What was surprising about this month’s Security-only…
Israeli Firm Tied To Tool That Uses WhatsApp Flaw To Spy On Activists
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: An Israeli firm accused of supplying tools for spying on human-rights activists and journalists now faces claims that its technology can use a security hole in WhatsApp, the messaging app used by 1.5 billion people, to break into the digital communications of iPhone and Android phone users (Warning: source may…