WEST BANK (Dispatches) – A Zionist spyware firm sold tools to a variety of governments to spy on politicians, dissidents, human rights activists, embassy workers and journalists, according to a Microsoft report.
Researchers from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, who worked with Microsoft, issued a report on Thursday about the potential targets of Candiru, a Tel Aviv-based firm selling “untraceable” spyware.
According to the report, the technology enabled clients to hack into Microsoft Windows, infecting and monitoring computers and phones.
In some cases, the spyware was initiated via fake advocacy group websites. Using internet scanning, Citizen Lab said it identified more than 750 sites linked to Candiru’s spyware infrastructure.
“We found many domains masquerading as advocacy organizations such as Amnesty International, the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as media companies, and other civil-society themed entities,” the group said.
Bill Marczak, a co-author of the report, told the Guardian that targeted activists may click on links that appear to be from trusted sources. “But this website, which was specially registered for the purpose of exploiting their computer, would run code in the background that would silently hijack control of their computer,” he said.
That code would then grant “persistent access to essentially everything on the computer”, he said, potentially allowing governments to steal passwords and documents or turn on a microphone to spy on a victim’s surroundings.
“The user wouldn’t recognize anything was amiss,” said Marczak.
Reportedly, Candiru’s spyware can infect and monitor iPhones, Android devices, Macs, PCs, and cloud accounts.
Technical analysis by security researchers details how Candiru’s hacking tool spread around the globe to numerous unnamed customers, where it was then used to target various organizations, including a Saudi dissident group and a left-leaning Indonesian news outlet, the report shows.
“Candiru’s growing presence, and the use of its surveillance technology against global civil society, is a potent reminder that the mercenary spyware industry contains many players and is prone to widespread abuse,” Citizen Lab said in its report.
Several Zionist companies - many of whose founders and employees hail from spy agencies and military industries - have developed technologies to hack and spy on mobile phones.