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.
3/ Mexico was first rocked by #Pegasus scandals in 2017 under President @EPN.
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.
NEW: @WhatsApp caught & fixed a sophisticated zero click attack...
Now they've published an advisory about it.
Say attackers combined the exploit with an @Apple vulnerability to hack a specific group of targets (i.e. this wasn't pointed at everybody)
Quick thoughts 1/
Wait, you say, haven't I heard of @WhatsApp zero-click exploits before?
You have.
A big user base makes a platform big target for exploit development.
Think about it from the attacker's perspective: an exploit against a popular messenger gives you potential access to a lot of devices.
You probably want maximum mileage from that painstakingly developed, weaponized, and tested exploit code you created/ purchased (or got bundled into your Pegasus subscription).
3/ The regular tempo of large platforms catching sophisticated exploits is a good sign.
They're paying attention & devoting resources to this growing category of highly targeted, sophisticated attacks.
But it's also a reminder of the magnitude of the threat out there...
WHOA: megapublisher @axelspringer is asking a German court to ban an ad-blocker.
Their claim that should make everyone nervous:
The HTML/ CSS code of websites are protected computer programs.
And influencing they are displayed (e.g by removing ads) violates copyright.
1/
2/ Preventing ad-blocking would be a huge blow to German cybersecurity and privacy.
There are critical security & privacy reasons to influence how a websites code gets displayed.
Like stripping out dangerous code & malvertising.
Or blocking unwanted trackers.
This is why most governments do it on their systems.
3/Defining HTML/CSS as a protected computer program will quickly lead to absurdities touching every corner of the internet.
Just think of the potential infringements:
-Screen readers for the blind
-'Dark mode' bowser extensions
-Displaying snippets of code in a university class
-Inspecting & modifying code in your own browser
-Website translators
3/ What still gives me chills is how many cases surfaced of people killed by cartels... or their family members... getting targeted with Pegasus spyware.
The #PegasusProject found even more potential cases in Mexico.