Overheden gebruiken al jarenlang malware voor hacking.

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Newly uncovered components of a digital surveillance tool used by more than 60 governments worldwide provide a rare glimpse at the extensive ways law enforcement and intelligence agencies use the tool to surreptitiously record and steal data from mobile phones.

The modules, made by the Italian company Hacking Team, were uncovered by researchers working independently of each other at Kaspersky Lab in Russia and the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs in Canada, who say the findings provide great insight into the trade craft behind Hacking Team’s tools.

The new components target Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry users and are part of Hacking Team’s larger suite of tools used for targeting desktop computers and laptops. But the iOS and Android modules provide cops and spooks with a robust menu of features to give them complete dominion over targeted phones.

They allow, for example, for covert collection of emails, text messages, call history and address books, and they can be used to log keystrokes and obtain search history data. They can take screenshots, record audio from the phones to monitor calls or ambient conversations, hijack the phone’s camera to snap pictures or piggyback on the phone’s GPS system to monitor the user’s location. The Android version can also enable the phone’s Wi-Fi function to siphon data from the phone wirelessly instead of using the cell network to transmit it. The latter would incur data charges and raise the phone owner’s suspicion.

“Secretly activating the microphone and taking regular camera shots provides constant surveillance of the target—which is much more powerful than traditional cloak and dagger operations,” notes Kaspersky researcher Sergey Golovanov in a blog post about the findings.

It’s long been known that law enforcement and intelligence agencies worldwide use Hacking Team’s tools to spy on computer and mobile phone users—including, in some countries, to spy on political dissidents, journalists and human rights advocates. This is the first time, however, that the modules used to spy on mobile phone users have been uncovered in the wild and reverse-engineered.

Kaspersky and Citizen Lab discovered them after developing new methods to search for code fragments and digital certificates used by Hacking Team’s tools.

The modules work in conjunction with Hacking Team’s core surveillance tool, known as the Remote Control System, which the company markets under the names Da Vinci and Galileo.

In a sleek marketing video for Galileo, Hacking Team touts the tool as the perfect solution for obtaining hard-to-reach data—such as data taken by a suspect across borders or data and communications that never leave the target’s computer and therefore can’t be siphoned in transit.

“You want to look through your targets’s eyes,” says the video. “While your target is browsing the web, exchanging documents, receiving SMS….”

Hacking Team’s tools are controlled remotely through command-and-control servers set up by Hacking Team’s law enforcement and intelligence agency customers to monitor multiple targets.

Kaspersky has tracked more than 350 command-and-control servers created for this purpose in more than 40 countries. While Kaspersky found only one or two servers in most of these countries, the researchers found 64 in the United States—by far the most. Kazakhstan followed with 49, Ecuador with 35 and the United Kingdom with 32. It’s not known for certain whether law enforcement agencies in the U.S. use Hacking Team’s tool or if these servers are used by other governments. But as Kaspersky notes, it makes little sense for governments to maintain their command servers in foreign countries where they run the risk of losing control over the servers.

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Hacking Team, a controversial Italian company which sells powerful surveillance tools to governments and law enforcement agencies, has had its systems breached and 400GB of internal documents leaked, showing that despite their denials, the company did sell its software to oppressive regimes in Sudan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
More about Hacking Team hack

Hacking Team sold spy tools to blacklisted Sudan and 'stonewalled UN investigation'

The attack was carried out by unknown hackers who posted the internal documents on various file sharing websites, as well as defacing the company's Twitter account and replacing the company's logo to read "Hacked Team".

Hacking Team is one of a number of private companies which develop highly-sophisticated cybertools to allow the monitoring and surveillance of people's smartphones and computers and includes UK-based Gamma International - which itself was hacked back in August 2014.

Hacking Team has yet to respond to a request for comment from IBTimes UK but one of its employees Christian Pozzi has responded on Twitter, claiming that the download links contain viruses and suggesting that most of what the hackers are claiming is not true:

@hackingteam The torrent contains a virus, it's best to let the authorities examine the evidence and stop seeding and spreading false info.
— Christian Pozzi (@christian_pozzi) July 6, 2015

Pozzi also responded to various people on Twitter warning them that posting details of the leak would lead to their arrest as Hacking Team is currently working with the police in the wake of this attack.
From the US to UAE

According to security researchers who have been trawling through the cache of documents - which includes invoices, emails and customers lists - the list of countries which is using or has previously used Hacking Team's surveillance tools ranges from the United States to Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Sudan.

Here is the full list of countries using Hacking Team's tools according to the leak:

Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, Nigeria, Sudan, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, United States, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Australia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxemburg, Poland, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates

The sale of the cyberweapons to Sudan is one of the most controversial revelations from the data dump, as the United Nations has been investigating a report by Citizen Lab that Hacking Team's tools were being used in the country.

According to one leaked document, which has been posted on text-sharing website Pastebin, Hacking Team's own system has Sudan - and Russia - listed as "not officially supported".
Hacking Team Sudan Invoice
The invoice which proves Hacking Team did sell its cyber weapons to SudanTwitter

According to Christopher Soghoian from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) the documents show that Hacking Team has been "stonewalling" the one-year long UN investigation and told the investigators that it doesn't have a business relationship with the Sudanese government.

However a leaked invoice (left) for the sum of¤480,000 (£341,000) sent by Hacking Team to the Sudanese government for a 50% payment for use of the company's cyber-weapon Remote Control System, would suggest there is a business relationship.

Sudan is currently subject to an arms embargo by the UN which is incorporated into EU and UK law. It bans the export of "arms and related material" to the the country and also prohibits technical assistance, brokering services and other military-related services.
Enemies of the Internet

In the US, agencies using Hacking Team's tools include the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Department of Defence.

The identity of the hackers remains a mystery, though some have suggested the same group that hacked Gamma International in 2014 is behind this attack.

Hacking Team has come in for a huge amount of criticism for the way it operates and the countries it reportedly does business with - leading Reporters Without Borders to list the company on its Enemies of the Internet index.
More about cyber-espionage

"The process under which Hacking Team sells its products is designed to make sure they are not abused and they are used in accordance with the applicable laws and international standards such as black lists that restrict where some products like this can be sold."

Research published by Citizen Lab in 2014 highlighted the powerful nature of Hacking Team's "lawful intercept tool" known as Da Vinci, which allows those using it to implant a piece of malware on your smartphone and take control of the device's microphone, camera, keyboard and even services like Facebook, WhatsApp and Skype. The Hacking Team's modules target Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry and complement the tools which infect desktop software.

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Mogelijk gaat het om een medewerker van de Fiscale Inlichtingen- en Opsporingsdienst, die onder de Belastingdienst valt en belastingfraude moet opsporen. De FIOD heeft net als de politie de bevoegdheden van een opsporingsdienst. Volgens ict-jurist Arnoud Engelfriet is het niet helemaal duidelijk of de FIOD malware zou mogen installeren. "Er is geen wettelijke grondslag om op afstand computers te mogen hacken", zegt hij. "Maar volgens de minister mag het gewoon." Wel is er wetgeving in de maak om die bevoegdheden in de wet vast te leggen.

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Op zondag 8 mei 2016 13:13 schreef aloa het volgende:
Is het nu toegestaan dan? Het hacken bedoel ik door overheid/politie?

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Op zondag 8 mei 2016 16:31 schreef Pietverdriet het volgende:
Had je deze meegekregen?
https://www.wired.com/201(...)t-tried-failed-hide/
Fijn toch, die grote sterke overheid waar jij zo een fan van bent