maaxx.ca

Ottawa, MINA – The Canadian Citizen Lab report on Tuesday (11/4) revealed that new Israeli spyware similar to the well-known Pegasus program has been used to target journalists and opposition politicians in several countries.

Cybersecurity and human rights organizations say the new program was designed by a little-known Israeli company called QuaDream Limited, founded by former Israeli military officials and veteran former NSO employees who manufactures Pegasus. So quoted from Middle East Monitors, Thursday (13/4).

Citizen Lab, which monitors the abuse of modern electronic devices, was able to identify at least five people targeted by the QuaDream program in North America, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

He added that the list of victims included “journalists, opposition politicians and an NGO employee”, but did not reveal their identities.

Spyware such as Pegasus was previously widely used by governments and other agencies to spy on dissidents, media and activists.

The White House said in late March that the administration had used Pegasus to “facilitate repression and enable human rights abuses.”

According to Citizen Lab, once placed on a user’s phone or personal computer, QuaDream spyware can record external calls and sounds, take pictures from the camera, and search for files on the device without the knowledge of the user.

The program can also generate two-factor authentication codes, i.e. passwords and security codes to secure continued access to the device owner’s cloud account.

He added that the spyware includes a self-destruct feature to hide its previous presence after not being used.

Citizen Lab has identified servers in ten countries that have received data from victim devices, including Israel, Singapore, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and Bulgaria.

He said the QuaDream company markets the spyware it produces to government customers in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Ghana, Indonesia, Morocco and other countries. (T/R7/P1

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)