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#Quadream

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Another Israeli spyware company has been exposed and they've been using a seriously sneaky trick to infect Apple phones.

They'd send an infected iCloud calendar invitation to users, set for a date in the past. This made them invisible to targeted users -- primarily journalists & government clients.

Reign-infected phones give full access to their mic & recorder, messages on encrypted apps, phone conversations & track locations.

theguardian.com/technology/202

The GuardianExperts warn of new spyware threat targeting journalists and political figures By Stephanie Kirchgaessner
Replied in thread

⬆️ “A secretive Israeli #spyware company has customers in at least 10 countries, and its hacking tools have been used against minority party politicians and journalists, according to research by Microsoft and the nonprofit Citizen Lab made public Tuesday. ”

“The system worked in part by sending malicious calendar invites that would not be seen by the targets.

Some information about QuaDream previously came to light after a marketing brochure was discovered. Media outlets have since identified customers, including #SaudiArabia, #Mexico and #Singapore.

Citizen Lab said it now has located QuaDream servers in #Bulgaria,# Czech Republic, #Hungary, #Ghana, #Israel, #Mexico, #Romania, Singapore, United Arab Emirates (#UAE) and #Uzbekistan. It noted that some of those countries, including Mexico and UAE, have widespread human rights issues and have been accused of deploying spyware on peaceful domestic opposition in the past. ”

“The new research underscores how the high-end spyware industry is much bigger than one notorious company and more deeply enmeshed with governments, including those who say they only use such tools against terrorists or archcriminals.

#QuaDream was established in 2016 by former #NSO employees, and its investors and executive ranks have changed in the past few years. The person Citizen Lab identified as the most recent chief executive, Avi Rabinowitz, did not return a message seeking comment. ”

#infosec #surveillance #espionage #CitizenLab
@JosephMenn