Citizen Lab

Governments all over the world have been considering cellphone surveillance to help track and contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Li Wenliang, a doctor in Wuhan who was reprimanded for warning colleagues of a new coronavirus earlier this year, used the messaging app WeChat to share his concerns on December 30, 2019, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In the summer of 2019, Saroj Giri was preparing a lecture on the panopticon—an 18th century system to surveil an entire prison from a single viewpoint—when a message lit up his phone. It was from WhatsApp, warning Giri that someone had tried to hack the popular messaging app to spy on his cell phone remotely.

Pegasus, the cellphone spyware tool sold by the Israeli firm NSO Group, is one of the most powerful surveillance systems governments can buy, experts say. Researchers who study it have detected “45 countries where Pegasus operators may be conducting surveillance operations,” and detailed its capabilities: whoever tricks the target into clicking on a link that…

New York, August 22, 2019–Israeli officials confirmed that, under a rule change by the Defense Ministry, Israeli surveillance companies are able to obtain exemptions on marketing license for the sale of some products to certain countries, Reuters reported today. It is not clear which companies, and which products, were impacted; however, Reuters reported that the…

In March 2015, Hicham Mansouri emailed an anti-malware company, suspicious of possible signs that someone was able to access his device remotely, without permission. He remembers exchanging a few messages with the software company, but the correspondence was interrupted after a few days, when around 10 police officers in civilian clothes arrived at his home…

New York, May 10, 2019–The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned a cyberattack on Mexicanos Contra La Corrupción y Impunidad (MCCI), a Mexican nonprofit news outlet that publishes in-depth investigations into corruption in Mexico and Latin America.

Entering the terms “NSO Group,” “journalists,” and “spying” into a Google search from a workstation in New York City recently produced a sponsored search result at the top of the page. The NSO Group manufactures some of the world’s most sophisticated and high-profile spyware, and its sponsored link invites readers to a slick website touting…

As Egypt’s crackdown on the press extends to social media and other communication platforms, many journalists say phishing attempts, trolling, software to monitor social media posts, and a draft law that would require registration for social media users are making them think twice before covering sensitive issues.