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Over the weekend, an international consortium of news outlets reported that several authoritarian governments — including Mexico, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates — used spyware developed by NSO Group to hack into the phones of thousands of their most vocal critics, including journalists, activists, politicians and business executives.
A leaked list of 50,000 phone numbers of potential surveillance targets was obtained by Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International and shared with the reporting consortium, including The Washington Post and The Guardian. Researchers analyzed the phones of dozens of victims to confirm they were targeted by the NSO's Pegasus spyware, which can access all of the data on a person's phone. The reports also confirm new details of the government customers themselves, which NSO Group closely guards. Hungary, a member of the European Union where privacy from surveillance is supposed to be a fundamental right for its 500 million residents, is named as an NSO customer.
The Mobile Verification Toolkit, or MVT, works on both iPhones and Android devices, but slightly differently. Amnesty said that more forensic traces were found on iPhones than Android devices, which makes it easier to detect on iPhones.
The toolkit works on the command line, so it's not a refined and polished user experience and requires some basic knowledge of how to navigate the terminal. We got it working in about 10 minutes, plus the time to create a fresh backup of an iPhone, which you will want to do if you want to check up to the hour.
[Also Covered By]: GIZMODO
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @08:47AM (5 children)
That's why those of us in the know stick to nokia flip-phones.
(Score: 3, Touché) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 21 2021, @09:48AM (3 children)
Still using my Nokia N900...
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @10:47AM
I basically had to get a smart phone this year because my bank starting to require it for them to do their AML/KYC policy (scanning your ID card chip through the phone). Since then more banks here are following the smart phone app hype, because they claim it is more secure (than their own old school identifier gizmo that has an air gap). I once tried to go into discussion with someone from my bank, but got stuck somewhere between "that's policy now, I can't help you further" and can't argue with stupid.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Wednesday July 21 2021, @06:29PM (1 child)
I had to get a new phone recently, because the carrier was changing networks and going to VoLTE. There were still two flipphone options: Alcatel Goflip 3 and Coolpad Snap. But they want eighty bucks for these things now, even though they look like the same old junk to me.
So I started looking at other phones. They are all the same design. A few inches wide, a fraction of an inch thick, and very long. If I had to name this design, I would call it the 'broadsword'. I went through one carrier's list of every phone that they claimed would work on their network and did an image search on models from each brand. All the same thing. Broadswords everywhere.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 21 2021, @06:46PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by KritonK on Wednesday July 21 2021, @10:46AM
Naaah, I use a Nokia 3310. No need to bother with flipping the phone open/closed all the time, the battery lasts almost forever, and the device does everything I need from a phone (i.e., make and receive phone calls).