BREAKING: powerful iPhone hacking tools used by Chinese criminals originated from US defense giant L3 Harris.

The $LHX zero-click exploits went to Russian spies too.

Unbelievable harm to our collective security.

Scoop by @lorenzofb, here's why this matters 1/
2/ Last week, the team @google blew open a massive hacking operation: #Coruna.

A Chinese hacking operation somehow had a huge catalogue of very, very good iPhone exploits stealing banking information from people all over the web.

Hard to overstate how bizarre this was...

YIKES: @perplexity_ai is flexing that they have OS-level access to 100M+ Samsung S26s.

Zero mention of:

Privacy
Security
Encryption

What will Perplexity do with this growing stash of personal data from deep inside Samsung phones? What jurisdictions will it live in? Who will it get shared with?

Here's the thing: Android's current security & privacy model involves sandboxing 3rd party apps from each other. TikTok can't read your private notes, for example.

Sandboxing is good & it narrows the attack surface against your private stuff.

But this #Perplexity integration breaks that baseline sandbox model, making a kernel-adjacent data bridge for Perplexity into your personal stuff.

Will users understand the structural shift in privacy?

Meanwhile, the risk of prompt injection & other attacks against an agentic AI that has OS-level access to personal stuff is also real.

Lots of speed, no signs of caution. 2/ Multiple agents & flows each with their own distinct security & privacy issues and levels of OS-level access to private stuff.

I doubt users have the cognitive spare room to parse privacy & security downsides each time they want to ask a question.

https://x.com/perplexity_ai/status/2027067800825872454

BREAKING: US just sanctioned a network of exploit brokers trafficking in stolen US hacking tools

First-ever use of #PIPA (Protecting American Intellectual Property Act) by @USTreasury.

Here's the wild backstory of how @opzero_en got US-taxpayer funded exploits. 1/
2/ Peter Williams was an exec at Trenchant, subsidiary of @L3HarrisTech / $LHX.

Trenchant makes hacking tools for 🇺🇸US & allies.

Williams sold them to @opzero_en & bought nice things.

Result? Powerful 🇺🇸 capabilities got into hostile hands.

https://x.com/jsrailton/status/1983629305440862664

BREAKING: It started with WhatsApp messages.

They said they were students & tried to build rapport with Angolan journalist Teixeira Cândido.

Then the links began arriving.

Someone was trying to hack him with #Predator spyware.

New bombshell investigation by @AmnestyTech 1/


2/ Heard of Pegasus? #Predator is a somewhat sloppier cousin.

They don't always have the hottest zero-click exploits, but they market to the same dictators.

And once you are infected, the harm is just as real: your digital life is turned inside-out.

NEW: When Kenyan cops arrested activist & presidential candidate @bonifacemwangi they took his devices.

When he got his personal phone back, the password was gone.

We @citizenlab found they'd abused @cellebrite to break into it.

Here's why this abuse matters 1/


2/ Your phone holds the keys to your life, and governments shouldn’t be able to help themselves to the contents just because they don’t like what you are saying.

But everywhere you look, cops are getting phone cracking technology from companies like @cellebrite.

Many abuse it.

NEW: Israeli surveillance companies are rushing to turn your car into a spy.

🎥Watching the cameras
🎤Listening to the built-in mics
📍Tracking your movements

And that's just the beginning of how these companies turn your car against you. 1/

Story by @haaretzcom's @omerbenj


2/ And other companies are using AI to fuse all the signals coming from your car with other sources of information.

Honestly, the growth of #CARINT shouldn't shock anybody.

Our cars are badly secured & very connected... So it's natural for surveillance merchants to turn up.

STORY haaretz.com/israel-news/se…

Epic OPSEC fail by Paragon exposing Graphite spyware capabilities.

Annotated pic from what we know.

Please help me figure out the other apps in in this pic that the spyware can access:

#WhatsApp
#Telegram
#Signal
?
#Line?
?
#Snapchat?
#TikTok? 2/ Companies like Paragon (founded in Israel, former Israeli intelligence ppl, recently sold to a US owner) make hacking American technology companies their business model.

And then selling these capabilities to foreign governments.

How can this be?

They showed us cute missing dogs & we consented to a mass human tracking system.

I think Ring's wants to be Flock. On steroids.

Because instead of just sketchy cameras in parking lots, Search Party will cover your own backyards & homes.

And if you & your neighbors want to challenge the loss of privacy? Well, how exactly would you do that effectively?

Because, instead of going to the city council, looking at the contracts, and calling out your mayor for speeding your city to dystopia, it's massive and distributed.

Will you even know which of your neighbors is now helping to feed the system?

If we had half competent privacy regulators & laws in the US this kind of thing would be a big, hard fight for Ring.

Instead? It's a Super Bowl commercial.

Oh, and yeah Ring has already partnered with Flock Safety to incorporate tools letting the government directly request footage. Regrettably, I'm familiar with this kind of graphical language.

This sort of gods-eye-view is exactly how you pitch your surveillance product to a state.

It's all over the kind of advertising we review all the time while researching commercial spyware & surveillance companies.

Someone spun up a social network for AI agents.

Almost immediately some agents began strategizing how to establish covert communications channels to communicate without human observation.

In many cases the agents are on machines that have access to personal user data.

"Privacy breach" as a sort of static term is going to be the wrong way to describe what is coming.


Not to be outdone, other agents quickly built an... AI religion.

The Church of Molt.

Some rushed to become the first prophets.

NEW: @USTreasury just de-sanctioned 3 foreign mercenary spyware execs.

Puzzling.

Just 2 years ago Predator spyware was pointed at🇺🇸American congresspeople @RepMcCaul & @SenJohnHoeven.

And recent research suggests Predator is still active around the globe. 1/


2/ NSO Group has bigger name recognition, but Intellexa's reputation for reckless proliferation of cyber capabilities is unmatched.

The pile of Predator abuses is enormous.

And they got repeatedly caught used against Americans by foreign govs.

https://x.com/jsrailton/status/1765056413036957778

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.. /1
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.

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/ 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)

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 @alburov


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.

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/
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…

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/ 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...

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/

https://x.com/jsrailton/status/1980656292378370509

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?

NOW: US court permanently bans Pegasus spyware maker from hacking WhatsApp.

NSO Group can't help their customers hack @WhatsApp, etc ether. Must delete exploits...

Bad news for NSO. Huge competitive disadvantage for the notorious company.

Big additional win for WhatsApp 1 /


2/ Although the massive punitive damages jury award against NSO Group ($167m) got reduced by the court, as is expected in cases where it is so large (to 9x compensatory damages)...

This is likely cold comfort to NSO since I think the injunction is going to have a huge impact on the value of NSO's spyware product.

Comes as NSO Group has been making noises about getting acquired by a US investor & some unnamed backers...

WOW: @Apple donating a thousand new #iPhone17 s to civil society at-risk from mercenary spyware.

Good. This will help get Apple's most secure devices to where they need to be..

Truth is: those at the greatest risk from spyware are often least able to afford more secure phones 1/ 2/ Memory Integrity Enforcement = big deal Radically hardens iPhones from common attack vectors.

So it was a bittersweet to see this announcement and think "yeah it's going to be a long time before highest risk ppl can get them."..

https://x.com/radian/status/1965480559368699936

NEW: fresh trouble for mercenary spyware companies like NSO Group.

@Apple launching substantial bounties on the zero-click exploits that feed the supply chain behind products like Pegasus & Paragon's Graphite.

With bonuses, exploit developers can hit $5 million payouts. 1/
2/ Apple is introducing Target Flags which speeds the process of getting exploits found & submitters rewarded.

This faster tempo is also a strike against the mercenary spyware ecosystem.

And the expanded categories also hit more widely against commercial surveillance vendors.

NEW: Pegasus spyware coming to America?

An ex-Adam Sandler producer is again trying acquire the notorious NSO Group.

Simonds fronted this before in 2023 & failed. But the backers of this idea haven't given up.

Where is the money coming from?

The unanswered questions should worry every American 1/


2/ Back in 2023 it wasn't clear to me where the money backing Robert Simonds big spyware plans came from.

It still isn't.

So, whose money will actually be buying Pegasus?

And what is the end goal?

Report by @globesnews' @assafgi
globes.co.il/news/article.a…

NEW: foreign mercenary spyware is coming to the US.

ICE just quietly unsuspended contract with spyware maker #Paragon.

Remember them?

Caught earlier this year being used to hack journalists.

Bad move for Americans rights, national security & counterintelligence 1/ 2/ #Paragon was co-founded in Israel in 2019 by ex head of Israel's NSA equivalent (Unit 8200) w/ major backing from former Israeli PM Ehud Barak.

Pitched themselves as stealthy & abuse-proof alternative to NSO Group's Pegasus.

& have been trying to get into the US market for years.