Tag Archive for: uae

UAE telecoms group takes 9.8 per cent stake in Vodafone

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Emirates Telecommunications Group has acquired a 9.8 per cent stake in Vodafone for around $4.4bn as it kick-starts its latest expansion into international markets.

The state-controlled UAE group, formerly known as Etisalat and now rebranded e&, on Saturday said the investment allowed it to “gain significant exposure to a world leader in connectivity and digital services”. e& said the transaction provided a “compelling and attractive valuation”.

The Abu Dhabi-listed group said it planned to be a long-term shareholder in Vodafone and was supportive of Vodafone’s board. There were no plans to make an offer for the British multinational, it added.

“We are looking forward to building a mutually beneficial strategic partnership with Vodafone with the goal of driving value creation for both our businesses, exploring opportunities in the rapidly developing global telecom market and supporting the adoption of next-generation technologies,” Hatem Dowidar, chief executive, said in a statement.

Vodafone acknowledged the investment, saying it looked forward to building a long-term relationship with Etisalat.

Vodafone has been under pressure since it emerged that Cevian Capital, Europe’s largest activist investor, had built an unspecified stake, and had been angling for an overhaul of what its investors believe to be an overly-complex business model.

Investors at Cevian have called for the company to shed poorly performing parts of the business, and make material progress towards mergers or acquisitions in markets that chief executive Nick Read has said he is looking to do deals in, namely the UK, Italy and Spain.

The Financial Times reported earlier this week that Vodafone was in talks to combine its UK operations with its domestic rival Three UK, the mobile operator owned by Hong Kong infrastructure conglomerate CK Hutchison.

Karen Egan, an analyst at Enders Analysis, said e&’s stake amounted to “another shareholder to add to the pressure on Read . . . at a crucial time for him”.

“A company like that doesn’t take a sizeable minority position unless they think they can have a lot of influence and I don’t think that they would buy a company like Vodafone…

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DOJ fines NSA hackers who assisted UAE in attacks on dissidents

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The Justice Department announced a controversial deal with three former US intelligence operatives that allows them to pay a fine after breaking multiple laws through their offensive hacking for the repressive government of the United Arab Emirates.



text: (Image: file photo)

© By Mark Van Scyoc — Shutterstock

(Image: file photo)


The DOJ said 49-year-old Marc Baier, 34-year-old Ryan Adams and 40-year-old Daniel Gericke “entered into a deferred prosecution agreement” that allows them to avoid prison sentences in exchange for paying $1,685,000 “to resolve a Department of Justice investigation regarding violations of US export control, computer fraud and access device fraud laws.”

The three were part of Project Raven, an effort by the UAE to spy on human rights activists, politicians and dissidents opposed to the government. The three even hacked into US companies, creating two exploits that were used to break into smartphones.

Both Reuters and The Intercept conducted an in-depth investigation into the work of Project Raven and a UAE cybersecurity firm named DarkMatter after members of the team raised concerns about the kind of hacking they were being asked to do by UAE officials. 

Despite the accusations listed in the court filing, the DOJ said Baier, Adams and Gericke — all former NSA employees or members of the US military — reached an agreement on September 7 to pay the fines in addition to other restrictions on their work. 

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Baier will be forced to pay $750,000, Adams will pay $600,000, and Gericke will pay $335,000 over a three-year term. All three will also be forced to cooperate with the FBI and DOJ on other investigations and relinquish any foreign or US security clearances. 

They are also permanently banned from having future US security clearances and will be restricted from any jobs involving computer network exploitation, working for certain UAE organizations, exporting defense articles or providing defense services.

The DOJ said the three were senior managers at a UAE company from 2016 to 2019 and continued to hack for the UAE despite being told they were violating rules that say people need a license from the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade…

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Three former US intelligence agents admit to hacking for the UAE

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Representative: The Justice Department accused the three former intelligence officials of committing computer fraud and violating export control laws by providing defense services without the required license (Getty Images)

Representative: The Justice Department accused the three former intelligence officials of committing computer fraud and violating export control laws by providing defense services without the required license (Getty Images)

Three former US intelligence agents admitted to committing hacking crimes against the country and providing sophisticated computer hacking tools to the United Arab Emirates, according to court documents made public on Tuesday.

The three hackers that include two US nationals and a former American citizen agreed to pay the penalty of $1.68 mn under a legal settlement with the federal government in a bid to avoid prosecution, said US Justice Department.

The operatives, Marc Baier, Ryan Adams and Daniel Gericke, all former employees of the US Intelligence community, worked as senior managers in a UAE-based company called DarkMatter, reported the New York Times. The Justice Department alleged that while working with the company, the three conducted hacking operations for the benefit of the UAE government.

The department accused the three men of committing computer fraud and violating export control laws by providing defense services without the required license.

It alleged that between 2016 and 2019, the three men provided access to “zero-click” computer hacking services which could compromise a “device without any action by the target”. These were then used to “obtain unauthorized access to computers, like mobile phones, around the world, including in the US,” said the Justice Department statement.

According to the media reports, the issue came to the fore after Lori Stroud, a former National Security Advisor and a former employee with DarkMatter raised the alarm with authorities about the Abu Dhabi-based organization hacking US citizens.

“This is progress,” she told AP, as she saw the case come to a resolution.

Lori Stroud is pictured in her home at an undisclosed location in the US, 27 September 2018 (REUTERS)

Lori Stroud is pictured in her home at an undisclosed location in the US, 27 September 2018 (REUTERS)

The UAE government has so far not issued a statement in the matter, reported AP, adding that the email sent to the officials at DarkMatter could not be delivered.

In 2018, DarkMatter’s founder and CEO, Faisal al-Bannai, had told AP that the…

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Ex-US intelligence officers admit hacking for UAE

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a tall building in a city: Prosecutors say the men carried out hacking for the UAE without obtaining the required US licences

© Reuters
Prosecutors say the men carried out hacking for the UAE without obtaining the required US licences

Three former US intelligence operatives have admitted to breaking US laws by carrying out hacking operations for the United Arab Emirates.

US prosecutors said the men had agreed to pay $1.7m (£1.2m) to resolve charges of computer fraud, access device fraud and violating export controls.

They worked for an unnamed UAE-based firm and allegedly hacked into servers, computers and phones around the world.

There was no immediate comment from the men or Emirati officials.

Earlier this year, the UAE was accused of using malware from the Israeli company NSO Group to spy on journalists, dissidents and rival governments.

The US justice department said the former intelligence officers – US citizens Marc Baier and Ryan Adams, and former US citizen Daniel Gericke – initially worked for a US company that provided cyber services to a UAE government agency in compliance with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

The regulations require companies to obtain pre-approval from the US government prior to releasing information regarding a hacking operation and to agree not to target US citizens and permanent residents or US entities.

In 2016, the three men joined the UAE-based company as senior managers and began carrying out hacking operations for the benefit of the UAE government without obtaining the required licences from the US, according to the justice department.

Over the next three years, it alleged, they supervised the creation of two similar sophisticated “zero-click” computer hacking and intelligence gathering systems – “Karma” and “Karma 2” – that could compromise a device without any action by the target and allowed users to access tens of millions of devices made by a US technology company that was not identified.

The justice department said employees of the company had leveraged the systems to illegally obtain and use credentials for online accounts issued by US companies, and to obtain unauthorised access to computers and mobile phones around the world, including in the US.

“Hackers-for-hire and those who otherwise support such activities in violation of US law…

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