Spyware is software with malicious behaviour that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user by violating their privacy, endangering their device's security, or other means. This behaviour may be present in malware and in legitimate software. Websites may engage in spyware behaviours like web tracking. Hardware devices may also be affected.
Computer and network surveillance is the monitoring of computer activity and data stored locally on a computer or data being transferred over computer networks such as the Internet. This monitoring is often carried out covertly and may be completed by governments, corporations, criminal organizations, or individuals. It may or may not be legal and may or may not require authorization from a court or other independent government agencies. Computer and network surveillance programs are widespread today and almost all Internet traffic can be monitored.
Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizations, such as organizations like the NSA, but it may also be carried out by corporations. Depending on each nation's laws and judicial systems, the legality of and the permission required to engage in mass surveillance varies. It is the single most indicative distinguishing trait of totalitarian regimes. It is also often distinguished from targeted surveillance.
The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, Canada. It was founded by Ronald Deibert in 2001. The laboratory studies information controls that impact the openness and security of the Internet and that pose threats to human rights. The organization uses a "mixed methods" approach which combines computer-generated interrogation, data mining, and analysis with intensive field research, qualitative social science, and legal and policy analysis methods. The organization has played a major role in providing technical support to journalists investigating the use of NSO Group's Pegasus spyware on journalists, politicians and human rights advocates.
FinFisher, also known as FinSpy, is surveillance software marketed by Lench IT Solutions plc, which markets the spyware through law enforcement channels.
HackingTeam was a Milan-based information technology company that sold offensive intrusion and surveillance capabilities to governments, law enforcement agencies and corporations. Its "Remote Control Systems" enable governments and corporations to monitor the communications of internet users, decipher their encrypted files and emails, record Skype and other Voice over IP communications, and remotely activate microphones and camera on target computers. The company has been criticized for providing these capabilities to governments with poor human rights records, though HackingTeam states that they have the ability to disable their software if it is used unethically. The Italian government has restricted their licence to do business with countries outside Europe.
Bahrain Watch is a "research and advocacy organisation" devoted to issues related to Bahrain. The group was founded in 2011 by several people, including journalist Ala'a Shehabi.
Morgan Marquis-Boire is a New Zealand-born hacker, journalist, and security researcher. Marquis-Boire previously served as an advisor to the Freedom of the Press Foundation. He was a Special Advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and advisor to the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute. He was the Director of Security at First Look Media and a contributing writer at The Intercept. He has been profiled by Wired, CNN, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Tages Anzeiger. He was one of Wired Italy 's Top 50 people of 2014. In March 2015 he was named a Young Global Leader.
Detekt is a discontinued free tool by Amnesty International, Digitale Gesellschaft, EFF, and Privacy International to scan for surveillance software on Microsoft Windows.
Gamma Group is an Anglo-German technology company that sells surveillance software to governments and police forces around the world. The company has been strongly criticised by human rights organisations for selling its FinFisher software to undemocratic regimes such as Egypt and Bahrain.
NSO Group Technologies is an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance of smartphones. It employed almost 500 people as of 2017.
Pegasus is a spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group that is designed to be covertly and remotely installed on mobile phones running iOS and Android. While NSO Group markets Pegasus as a product for fighting crime and terrorism, governments around the world have routinely used the spyware to surveil journalists, lawyers, political dissidents, and human rights activists.
Stealth Falcon is a cybercrime group affiliated to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which is associated with Project Raven.
On October 30, 2019, WhatsApp's parent company Facebook, Inc. confirmed that Pegasus, a sophisticated snooping software developed by Israel's NSO Group, was used to target Indian journalists, activists, lawyers and senior government officials. The journalists and activists are believed to have been targets of surveillance for a two-week period until May, when the Indian national election was held.
The Pegasus Project is an international investigative journalism initiative that revealed governments' espionage on journalists, opposition politicians, activists, business people and others using the private Pegasus spyware developed by the Israeli technology and cyber-arms company NSO Group. Pegasus is ostensibly marketed for surveillance of "serious crimes and terrorism". In 2020, a target list of 50,000 phone numbers leaked to Forbidden Stories, and an analysis revealed the list contained the numbers of leading opposition politicians, human rights activists, journalists, lawyers and other political dissidents.
Candiru is a Tel Aviv-based technology company offering surveillance and cyberespionage technology to governmental clients.
FORCEDENTRY, also capitalized as ForcedEntry, is a security exploit allegedly developed by NSO Group to deploy their Pegasus spyware. It enables the "zero-click" exploit that is prevalent in iOS 13 and below, but also compromises recent safeguards set by Apple's "BlastDoor" in iOS 14 and later. In September 2021, Apple released new versions of its operating systems for multiple device families containing a fix for the vulnerability.
CatalanGate is a 2022 political scandal involving accusations of espionage using the NSO Group's Pegasus spyware, against figures of the Catalan independence movement. Targets of the supposed espionage included elected officials, activists, lawyers, and computer scientists; in some cases, families of the main targets were also purportedly targeted.
The 2022 Greek wiretapping scandal, sometimes called Predatorgate or Greek Watergate in reference to its similarities to the United States Watergate scandal, refers to the prolonged and en masse monitoring of the mobile phones of individuals prominent in the Greek political scene, including the president of the social democratic party, PASOK, Nikos Androulakis, the journalists Thanassis Koukakis and Stavros Michaloudis, as well as members of the government and close affiliates of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, among others.
Cytrox is a company established in 2017 that makes malware used for cyberattacks and covert surveillance. Its Predator spyware was used to target Egyptian politician Ayman Nour in 2021 and to spy on 92 phones belonging to businessmen, journalists, politicians, government ministers and their associates in Greece. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Commerce added the Cytrox companies Cytrox AD in North Macedonia, and Cytrox Holdings Crt in Hungary to its Entity List.
