John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Oct 2, 2022 10 tweets 10 min read Read on X
BREAKING: journalists & human rights defenders hacked with #Pegasus in 🇲🇽#Mexico.

Years *after* spyware scandals & new President's promise that abuses were over.

THREAD 1/

Report by @R3Dmx ejercitoespia.r3d.mx
We @citizenlab did forensic validation: citizenlab.ca/2022/10/new-pe… Key Takeaways Mexican digital rights organization R3D (Red eOur technical validation of forensic artifacts collected fro
2/ Per @R3Dmx, #Pegasus victims were infected while working on:

❌Connections between Los Zetas Cartel & Mexican Army
❌Official misconduct in investigations into #Ayotzinapa forced disappearances
❌Human rights violations by Mexican Armed Forces.

Chilling. Ricardo Raphael  Raphael, a prominent journalist and author Raymundo Ramos Vázquez  Ramos has spent years documenting h
3/ Mexico was first rocked by #Pegasus scandals in 2017 under President @EPN.

We @citizenlab, @R3Dmx @socialtic & @article19org had found dozens of abuse cases.

When Pres. @lopezobrador_ took office, he promised hacking abuses were a thing of the past...
4 Mexico's #Pegasus scandals didn't stop.

The #PegasusProject also revealed that scores in the circle of @lopezobrador_ had been potentially selected for targeting while @EPN was in office.

Including now-President AMLO's wife & children. In 2017, the Citizen Lab, along with partners R3D, SocialTic
5/ Mexico has been one of the *most* notorious cases of #Pegasus spyware abuses.

NSO Group has has been confronted about this. For years.

Mexico's new president, touched himself by spyware abuses prior to entering office... had promised it was over.

Yet here we are.
6/ Yet again, journalists & human rights defenders of intense interest to the Mexican government got hacked.

Chillingly, some of their work was clearly of intense interest to cartels, too.

#Mexico has seen *half a decade* of abuses like this. Need for an Independent Investigation These latest cases, wh
7/ I urge you to read @R3Dmx's full report. Here's their thread on the cases.
8/ Another key find via @R3Dmx: Mexico did recent business with companies linked to prior #Pegasus contracts👇👇

Despite making strenuous efforts to deny any such business.
9/ A key detail: while previous Pegasus cases @citizenlab investigated in #Mexico involved finding SMS messages and 1-click attacks... these latest cases were zero-click attacks.

No action was required on the part of the victims to be infected.
10/ Of course NSO has a response that is not serious.

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More from @jsrailton

Dec 4
WHOA: Predator spyware discovered in 🇵🇰#Pakistan.

+ a leak shows zero-click infections via... ads.

Yikes.

Here are some more damming revelations as Intellexa, the shady, sanctioned spyware supplier gets exposed by @AmnestyTech & partners.. /1Image
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2/ First, a mercenary spyware myth has just been busted.

Because the leak shows an Intellexa employee directly accessing a customer deployment.

Prior to the #PredatorFiles leak, spyware companies basically always claimed they couldn't access customer deployments & didn't know what was going on there.

They used this to avoid responsibility & claim ignorance when faced with abuses.Image
3/ And it gets crazier. The leak shows Intellexa casually accessing a core backbone of Predator deployment of a government customer.

Seemingly without the gov's knowledge.

Suggests that Intellexa can look over their shoulder & watch their sensitive targeting.

Huge counterintelligence nightmare for customers.

And a giant liability red-flag for intellexa.Image
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Read 11 tweets
Nov 13
NEW: 🇨🇳Chinese hackers ran massive campaign by tricking Claude's agentic AI.

Vibe hacking ran 80-90% of the operation without humans.

Massive scale (1000s of reqs/sec).

Agents ran complex multi-step tasks, shepherded by a human.

Long predicted. Welcome to the new world.

Fascinating report by @AnthropicAI 1/Image
2/ The old cybersecurity pitch: unpatched systems are the threat.

The next generation concern might be unpatched cognition.

The attacker jailbroke the cognitive layer of @anthropic's Claude code, successfully convincing the system of false intent (that it was a security exercise)Image
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3/ One of the key points in @AnthropicAI's report is just how limited the human time required was to run such a large automated campaign.

Obviously powerful stuff, highlighting the impact of orchestration.

And concerning for the #cybersecurity world for all sorts of reasons, ranging from attack scale, adaptability & cost reductions...

But I keep thinking of the next step in this..

READ: assets.anthropic.com/m/ec212e6566a0…Image
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Read 6 tweets
Nov 11
Putin has 3 identical offices his residences to hide where he is when he goes on TV.

But a cascade of tiny details gives the whole thing away.

Light switches, door handles, wood patterns & wall seams.

Truly epic OSINT.

h/t @alburovImage
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2. First, Putin had one office in his Novo-Ogarevo residence.

Then, paranoia kicked in. After he invaded Crimea it intensified.

Time for new digs, and elaborate deceptions to make him feel safe & project the image to Russians that he's an engaged Moscow-based leader. Image
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3/ For something that cost so much, the number of substantial differences & subtle tells is overwhelming.

Undoing the entirety of the enterprise of deception.

You have to assume that Intelligence services have known these tells for a long time.
svoboda.org/a/systema-kabi…Image
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Read 7 tweets
Oct 23
NEW: Ex exec at premier private cyber weapons contractor to US accused of selling eight trade secrets to buyer in Russia.

I think this = exploits.

Very bad: at minimum would give adversaries a blueprint for detecting the tip of the spear of US/Allied cyber ops..

Wild story 1/Image
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2/ A watch collection studded with fake rolexes...

...is allegedly part of Peter "doogie" Williams haul from selling the hacking labs' secrets.

documentcloud.org/documents/2619…Image
3/ While doogie's watch collection is a joke, the questions couldn't be more serious:

Were cyberweapons paid for by American taxpayers also turned against us?

Were service members, officials, or civilians at physical risk? When was this breach first suspected? Who knew what? When?Image
Read 9 tweets
Oct 22
WARNING: seeing a lot of phishing against @Signal users.

Did you get a message like this?

Don't engage! It's an attempt to steal your account.

Your account is safe & chats are private, but you should use Signal's option to Report Spam & Block. 1/Image
2/ You can make the attackers life harder by clicking Report.

Background: Like any popular secure messaging app, Signal users sometimes get targeted by spam & phishing attempts.

Often, attackers guess large numbers of usernames / phone numbers & send out message requests...Image
3/ Take a minute to remind yourself how message requests & blocking work on @Signal.

FAQ: support.signal.org/hc/en-us/artic…Image
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Read 4 tweets
Oct 21
A "damaging" leak of tools from a five eyes exploit developer?

Concerning. We need to know what's under this rug.

Big picture: "trusted, vetted" private sector players offensive cyber are not immune to losing control of tooling... with national security consequences 1/
2/ If true, a tooling leak at boutique firm Trenchant wouldn't be the first time that exploits from commercial offensive vendors wind up... in the wrong place.

Many questions.

In the meantime. Remember when Russian APT29..was caught with exploits first used by NSO & Intellexa? Image
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3/ There will always be a push for states to turn towards the private sector to meet offensive needs.

It's appealing. For some, it's very lucrative.

But in practice it brings unavoidable counterintelligence & national security downside risk that shouldn't be downplayed.
Read 11 tweets

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