Jango
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Consider this: your mobile phone is sending a steady stream of private information and location coordinates to an unknown entity that has included your name on a list of targets to be monitored.
Your computer allows those with a set of very sophisticated, very expensive spyware tools to access your digital life, from saved photos and chat messages to watching and listening to you using your device’s camera and microphone. This massive breach of privacy is virtually undetectable and untraceable.
Now imagine such tools in the hands of the state’s security apparatus.
In a recent report, Privacy International (PI), an organization focused on privacy intrusions, asserted that the government had obtained such surveillance tools from multiple sources, including Ericsson, Alcatel, Huawei, SS8 and Utimaco. There is increasing concern that local Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and intelligence agencies have the ability to intrude into a range of devices to capture data, encrypted or otherwise.
One software that enables such high-level spying is Remote Control System (RCS) — a ‘cyber security’ solution developed by Hacking Team (HT), an Italian IT company notorious for its spy tools that have been sold to countries as far and wide as Sudan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, India, Mexico and Russia.
Promotional video Hacking Team released to market RCS
RCS primarily works through the installation of malware, a malicious programme that is remotely transmitted to a device and then used to transfer private data through an internet connection.
Aside from allowing access to photos, emails, chat conversations, social media accounts and passwords, the software can tap phone and Skype calls, take photographs using the infected device’s camera and switch on a device’s microphone – all without the user’s knowledge, and without affecting a device’s battery life.
HT boastfully claims to equip law enforcement agencies solely to “fight crime hidden in the new encrypted digital world”. It repeatedly asserts its RCS hacking software is lawful, and “critical to the work of preventing and investigating crime and terrorism…we serve over 50 clients in more than 30 countries; we have been the first movers and leaders since 2004.”
It was perhaps this notoriety and success that led to HT itself being hacked in July by an anonymous hacker who released 400GB of the company’s data online, of which one million emails have been compiled into a public archive by Wikileaks.
In an attempt at damage control, HT published a message from CEO & Founder David Vincenzetti who admitted there was a security breach, adding that, “the attack on our company was a reckless and vicious crime.”
Enter Pakistan
With HT acknowledging the data leak, the controversial surveillance company’s detailed liaison with global customers has been laid bare - and among the emails are over 1,000 exchanges with a set of actors who claim to be Pakistani contractors representing various state institutions.
Against the backdrop of Privacy International’s report detailing Pakistan’s desire to build a mass surveillance system, these emails reinforce the idea that some elements within Pakistan have purchased, or are in the process of acquiring intrusive hacking tools such as RCS using the names of top LEAs and intelligence agencies.
The email exchanges run from 2011, where HT staff discuss doing business with Pakistan, in which it sees an “exceptional customer”, up to May 2015 where a contractor claims he has received demands from local agencies for surveillance equipment that can be integrated into unmanned air vehicles (drones) and land vehicles.
With many email chains ending abruptly or switching over to phone calls and private meetings online or abroad, the status of RCS being actively used inside Pakistan is currently unknown.
In the examination of emails that follows, the years long exchanges between Pakistan's contractors and HT reveals how the business of surveillance operates, and the dangers it poses.
Hacking Team hacked: The Pakistan connection, and India's expansion plan - Pakistan - DAWN.COM
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This is a looong article, including the Wikileaks emails...do check it out.
I don't know if anyone noticed, but since the past few weeks, there has been a lot of talk going on about ISI hacking and doing cyber espionage and whatnot...this is gonna get interesting...
@Icarus, any comments youo'd like to add?
Your computer allows those with a set of very sophisticated, very expensive spyware tools to access your digital life, from saved photos and chat messages to watching and listening to you using your device’s camera and microphone. This massive breach of privacy is virtually undetectable and untraceable.
Now imagine such tools in the hands of the state’s security apparatus.
In a recent report, Privacy International (PI), an organization focused on privacy intrusions, asserted that the government had obtained such surveillance tools from multiple sources, including Ericsson, Alcatel, Huawei, SS8 and Utimaco. There is increasing concern that local Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and intelligence agencies have the ability to intrude into a range of devices to capture data, encrypted or otherwise.
One software that enables such high-level spying is Remote Control System (RCS) — a ‘cyber security’ solution developed by Hacking Team (HT), an Italian IT company notorious for its spy tools that have been sold to countries as far and wide as Sudan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, India, Mexico and Russia.
Promotional video Hacking Team released to market RCS
RCS primarily works through the installation of malware, a malicious programme that is remotely transmitted to a device and then used to transfer private data through an internet connection.
Aside from allowing access to photos, emails, chat conversations, social media accounts and passwords, the software can tap phone and Skype calls, take photographs using the infected device’s camera and switch on a device’s microphone – all without the user’s knowledge, and without affecting a device’s battery life.
HT boastfully claims to equip law enforcement agencies solely to “fight crime hidden in the new encrypted digital world”. It repeatedly asserts its RCS hacking software is lawful, and “critical to the work of preventing and investigating crime and terrorism…we serve over 50 clients in more than 30 countries; we have been the first movers and leaders since 2004.”
It was perhaps this notoriety and success that led to HT itself being hacked in July by an anonymous hacker who released 400GB of the company’s data online, of which one million emails have been compiled into a public archive by Wikileaks.
In an attempt at damage control, HT published a message from CEO & Founder David Vincenzetti who admitted there was a security breach, adding that, “the attack on our company was a reckless and vicious crime.”
Enter Pakistan
With HT acknowledging the data leak, the controversial surveillance company’s detailed liaison with global customers has been laid bare - and among the emails are over 1,000 exchanges with a set of actors who claim to be Pakistani contractors representing various state institutions.
Against the backdrop of Privacy International’s report detailing Pakistan’s desire to build a mass surveillance system, these emails reinforce the idea that some elements within Pakistan have purchased, or are in the process of acquiring intrusive hacking tools such as RCS using the names of top LEAs and intelligence agencies.
The email exchanges run from 2011, where HT staff discuss doing business with Pakistan, in which it sees an “exceptional customer”, up to May 2015 where a contractor claims he has received demands from local agencies for surveillance equipment that can be integrated into unmanned air vehicles (drones) and land vehicles.
With many email chains ending abruptly or switching over to phone calls and private meetings online or abroad, the status of RCS being actively used inside Pakistan is currently unknown.
In the examination of emails that follows, the years long exchanges between Pakistan's contractors and HT reveals how the business of surveillance operates, and the dangers it poses.
Hacking Team hacked: The Pakistan connection, and India's expansion plan - Pakistan - DAWN.COM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a looong article, including the Wikileaks emails...do check it out.
I don't know if anyone noticed, but since the past few weeks, there has been a lot of talk going on about ISI hacking and doing cyber espionage and whatnot...this is gonna get interesting...
@Icarus, any comments youo'd like to add?
