Tag Archive for: surveillance

Facebook Banned 7 ‘Cyber Surveillance Companies for Tracking and Hacking 48,000 Users’ Devices

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Meta has banned seven alleged surveillance-for-hire companies from its platforms after those parties installed spyware on end-users’ phones, mining their confidential data, hacking their devices, and selling their data to rogue countries.

Meta, the parent company of social media brands Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp reported its purification operation took months of investigation.

Meta claims it has identified seven cyber mercenary companies that have targeted some 48,000 clients in over 100 countries. Moreover, Meta says it removed 1,500 Facebook and Instagram profiles that could be traced back to these outfits.

In most cases, these firms would create fake profiles to be used as a front which would then be used to collect customers’ intelligence, hack their devices or grab their money. 

The Meta release authored by  David Agranovich, Director, Threat Disruption, and Mike Dvilyanski, Head of Cyber Espionage Investigations put it as follows: 

“The global surveillance-for-hire industry targets people to collect intelligence, manipulate and compromise their devices and accounts across the internet.

“While these “cyber mercenaries” often claim that their services only target criminals and terrorists, our months-long investigation concluded that targeting is in fact indiscriminate and includes journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes, families of opposition and human rights activists.

“We disabled seven entities who targeted people across the internet in over 100 countries; shared our findings with security researchers, other platforms and policymakers; issued Cease and Desist warnings; and also alerted people who we believe were targeted to help them strengthen the security of their accounts.”

Of the seven surveillance-for-hire businesses, four were believed to have operated from Israel, namely Cobwebs Technologies, Cognyte, Black Cube, and Bluehawk CI, while another one listed as BellTroX was based in India. 

Yet another one named Cytrox was registered in North Macedonia. Also, an unidentified firm from China was believed to be engaged in providing spying services on minority groups like the Uyghur minority in China.

Three phases of…

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Report: US Wants Allies to Restrict Exports of Surveillance Tools

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The US government is reportedly looking to lead other nations in prohibiting the export of surveillance tools to authoritarian countries that could use them to commit human rights abuses.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Biden administration is expected to “launch an initiative with friendly nations to establish a code of conduct for coordinating export-licensing policies” at the Summit for Democracy event hosted by the US Department of State that starts on Dec. 9.

The report cites unidentified administration officials who told the Journal that countries participating in this initiative will also “share information on sensitive technologies used against political dissidents, journalists, foreign government officials and human rights activists.”

It’s not clear what countries will be part of this initiative at the start, but based on existing US policies and the Summit for Democracy’s invite list, it seems likely that the export controls will be intended to prevent advanced surveillance technologies from being sold to Russia and China

This report follows the US Department of Commerce’s addition of NSO Group, Candiru, Positive Technologies, and Computer Security Initiative Consultancy to the Entity List for selling their spyware to governments that used them to target journalists, human rights groups, and others.

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That makes it harder for the quartet to do business with American companies. It doesn’t prevent them from selling their existing surveillance tools to authoritarian countries, however, and the new export rules expected to be announced at the Summit for Democracy might change that.

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EXCLUSIVE Chinese province targets journalists, foreign students with planned new surveillance system

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BEIJING, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Security officials in one of China’s largest provinces have commissioned a surveillance system they say they want to use to track journalists and international students among other “suspicious people”, documents reviewed by Reuters showed.

A July 29 tender document published on the Henan provincial government’s procurement website – reported in the media for the first time – details plans for a system that can compile individual files on such persons of interest coming to Henan using 3,000 facial recognition cameras that connect to various national and regional databases.

A 5 million yuan ($782,000) contract was awarded on Sept. 17 to Chinese tech company Neusoft (600718.SS), which was required to finish building the system within two months of signing the contract, separate documents published on the Henan government procurement website showed. Reuters was unable to establish if the system is currently operating.

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Shenyang-based Neusoft did not respond to requests for comment.

China is trying to build what some security experts describe as one of the world’s most sophisticated surveillance technology networks, with millions of cameras in public places and increasing use of techniques such as smartphone monitoring and facial recognition.

U.S.-based surveillance research firm IPVM, which has closely tracked the network’s expansion and first identified the Henan document, said the tender was unique in specifying journalists as surveillance targets and providing a blueprint for public security authorities to quickly locate them and obstruct their work.

“While the PRC has a documented history of detaining and punishing journalists for doing their jobs, this document illustrates the first known instance of the PRC building custom security technology to streamline state suppression of journalists,” said IPVM’S Head of Operations Donald Maye, using the initials of the People’s Republic of China.

Reuters was unable to find any documents identifying journalists or foreigners as specific targets of surveillance systems in other parts of China.

The Henan provincial government and police did not respond to…

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School surveillance of students via laptops may do more harm than good

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(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

(THE CONVERSATION) Ever since the start of the pandemic, more and more public school students are using laptops, tablets or similar devices issued by their schools.

The percentage of teachers who reported their schools had provided their students with such devices doubled from 43% before the pandemic to 86% during the pandemic, a September 2021 report shows.

In one sense, it might be tempting to celebrate how schools are doing more to keep their students digitally connected during the pandemic. The problem is, schools are not just providing kids with computers to keep up with their schoolwork. Instead – in a trend that could easily be described as Orwellian – the vast majority of schools are also using those devices to keep tabs on what students are doing in their personal lives.

Indeed, 80% of teachers and 77% of high school students reported that their schools had installed artificial intelligence-based surveillance software on these devices to monitor students’ online activities and what is stored in the computer.

This student surveillance is taking place – at taxpayer expense – in cities and school communities throughout the United States.


For instance, in the Minneapolis school district, school officials paid over $355,000 to use tools provided by student surveillance company Gaggle until 2023. Three-quarters of incidents reported – that is, cases where the system flagged students’ online activity – took place outside school hours.

In Baltimore, where the public school system uses the GoGuardian surveillance app, police officers are sent to children’s homes when the system detects students typing keywords related to self-harm.

Safety versus privacy

Vendors claim these tools keep students safe from self-harm or online activities that could lead to trouble. However, privacy groups and news outlets have raised questions about those…

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