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They're Spying On You: Hacking Team Mobile Malware, Infrastructure Uncovered
msm1267 (2804139) writes Controversial spyware commercially developed by Italy's Hacking Team and sold to governments and law enforcement for the purpose of surveillance has a global command and control infrastructure. For the first time, security experts have insight into how its mobile malware components work. Collaborating teams of researchers from Kaspersky Lab and Citizen Lab at the Monk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto today reported on their findings during an event in London. The breadth of the command infrastructure supporting Hacking Team's Remote Control System (RCS) is extensive, with 326 servers outed in more than 40 countries; the report also provides the first details on the inner workings of the RCS mobile components for Apple iOS and Android devices.
Adds reader Trailrunner7: [T]he report also provides the first details on the inner workings of the RCS mobile components for Apple iOS and Android devices. The new modules enable governments and law enforcement officers with extensive monitoring capabilities over victims, including the ability to report on their location, steal data from their device, use the device's microphone in real time, intercept voice and SMS messages sent via applications such as Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, and much more.
...it's to keep us FREE! They said so.
For our own protection of course. And that someday is coming soon. How much longer can Richard Stallman and I hold out on owning one of these dream (Stalin's) -machines?
So: how to prompt such malware to uninstall itself on one's devices?
I'm dusting off my old Motorola 8000 DynaTAC.
Interesting choice of words there. 'Victims' and 'suspects' carry pretty different implications with them.
Better to not install it in the first place. The article mentions targeted attacks: "Once the sample is ready, the attacker delivers it to the mobile device of the victim. Some of the known infection vectors include spearphishing via social engineering – often coupled with exploits, including zero-days; and local infections via USB cables while synchronizing mobile devices". Sounds like stuff you can avoid with some care. They also mention that the trojan will not work on un-jailbroken iOS devices.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Because Windows Phone is THE ONLY secure smart phone you can buy!
How do you think an upgrade / restore will deal with this? The article says that non-jailbroken devices are safe, unless a connected computer jailbreaks it first. Don't Apple have means to discover if a device has been jailbroken, and thus remove all such malware during a proper upgrade or restore? What do you guys think? And, what about how to discover such a hack, now that they are known?
I did RTFA and found this gem: "the iOS version of the RCS Trojans hits only jailbroken devices". Also
“Once the sample is ready, the attacker delivers it to the mobile device of the victim. Some of the known infection vectors include spearphishing via social engineering – often coupled with exploits, including zero-days; and local infections via USB cables while synchronizing mobile devices,”
So, ya, while this is bad, it is not in the same league as what NSA's surveillance of everyone and everything is.
I'm much more funny, interesting and insightful than the moderators think
Nope. Sorry. You have to PAY for the privilege of being spied on. It is the American way.
So with so many bad actors all stealing our cellphone data, how do they avoid stepping on each others toes? It must get crowded on our cellphones with all the malware competing for our data. Oink, oink
It is the government, that is why! Now shut up and provide the agents the necessary resources to violate your rights.
The biggest problem I see in perusing such charges is finding out who put it there. After that you would need to find a court that will rule in your favor and not be swayed by we need to stop those communist fascist terrorist kiddy diddlers arguments.
Time to offend someone
Taking a deeper dive into the malware, Kaspersky and Citizen Lab learned that the iOS version of the RCS Trojans hits only jailbroken devices. Pristine iPhones are also vulnerable if an attacker can remotely run a jailbreaking tool such as Evasi0n and then load the malware implant.
So I know there will be a lot of shouts here of 'see! iOS is vulnerable just like android!" this only works for people who have chosen to expose themselves to malware. also raises a lot of questions about who are the secret teams behind these jailbreaking kits. Especially with the new news of the new jailbreaking kit out of china.
don't jailbreak, don't get pwned.
Way to not answer the question by way of spreading FUD about taking control of one's own general purpose computer, jackass. My question was: given that the researchers identified ways to uninstall/trigger wipes of the malware from one's phone, how does one go about doing so? "Don't jailbreak an iphone." is not an adequate answer to that question.
What more do you want to know about her, myself, and my lolcat?
The link is broken for me, should be http://threatpost.com/researchers-go-inside-hackingteam-mobile-malware-command-infrastructure.
I notice that you are still not answering the question How to wipe an infected device. Is basic reading comprehension too challenging for you?
As the news from the US shows with "parallel construction" all the digital aspects are cleaned up before any defendant and their legal team get a look at a case presented by the gov.
Local law enforcement know federal/mil/contractor/private sector help with "parallel construction" is totally wrong. The local law enforcement put on a good show to hide the origins of cases or try to seal early case work and present more legally sound evidence.
Thankfully whistleblowers, good legal teams, law reform groups, politicians and the press are now more aware of the role federal/mil/contractor/private sector play in the court cases.
The other method is the idea of a sealed court where a gov expert just presents the logs/digital aspect without public comment or any legal challenge.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
What are the options for a uninstall/trigger wipe? :)
Could a unique telco call carry the needed 'off' layer without "ringing"/user been notified?
Could wifi be turned on and a site visit in range send the "off" instruction from a street, shop, cafe?
Could net connection be used to send the "off" instruction?
Could malware in a users computer be waiting to issue that command next time connected?
Consumer devices have many options to connect
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
short answer, you can never know that the phone has been sanitized. First, you'll never even know if you've been infected. Then, even if you go back to a full phone wipe, who knows what was planted in the BIOS or something. Basically, you have to throw out the phone, because it's been pwned 4evar.
By downloading IONU's app, or installing it on your computer, you don't have to worry about who will see your messages. IONU offers an encrypted messaging service so you can ensure that your message doesn't end up in someone else's hands. Learn more about IONU and download it here: https://ionu.com/download