Slashdot Mirror
Saudi Government Targeting Dissidents With Mobile Malware
wiredmikey (1824622) writes Human Rights Watch on Friday demanded a clarification from Saudi Arabia over allegations from security researchers that the kingdom is infecting and monitoring dissidents' mobile phones with surveillance malware. The New York-based rights watchdog said surveillance software allegedly made by Italian firm Hacking Team mostly targeted individuals in Qatif district in Eastern Province, which has been the site of sporadic Shiite-led protests since February 2011. "We have documented how Saudi authorities routinely crack down on online activists who have embraced social media to call out human rights abuses," said Cynthia Wong, HRW's senior Internet researcher. "It seems that authorities may now be hacking into mobile phones, turning digital tools into just another way for the government to intimidate and silence independent voices." The accusations against the Saudi Government come days after researchers from Kaspersky Lab and Citizen Lab uncovered new details on advanced surveillance tools offered by HackingTeam [Note: mentioned in this earlier Slashdot story], including never before seen implants for smartphones running on iOS and Android.
Only the U.S. can do that!
Nonsense. It is perfectly fine for the Saudis to violate human rights because they are an American ally.
Wow, these mid-east extremists are almost as bad as Americans.
Mobile malware => android malware. The mobile hacking tools profiled earlier this week and assumed to be in play here only work on android and jailbreaked ios. All ios malware in existence relies on users to break their own security first, using tools that come from shadowy overseas orgs. Whaaa? I was haxored? No shit Sherlock. Consider this before choosing your next ankle tracker.
What if there is software put in by Apple from a request by the government? That's not malware then?
What about shadowy domestic orgs who are more powerful and better funded?