Dark Reading is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them.Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Comments
Governments Use 'Legal' Mobile Malware To Spy On Citizens
Newest First  |  Oldest First  |  Threaded View
RyanSepe
RyanSepe,
User Rank: Ninja
6/29/2014 | 9:10:30 PM
Unconstiutional
Wasn't there a recent judgment made passing this as unconstitutional? I think it might have been within the last week. If anyone knows off hand please elaborate. I will try to find more data.
theb0x
theb0x,
User Rank: Ninja
6/28/2014 | 12:00:10 PM
Re: Spy vs Spy
Since it is well established, atleast according to Snowden..if that is his real name. The NSA can undetectably intercept devices in transit and implant them with malware before the shipment reaches it's destination.

With that being said, who in their right mind uses stock firmware on their mobile device? I use my own highly customized firmware built and hardened from scratch. SMS functionality is completely stripped. GPS functionality can actually be disabled along with camera and mic. All data/VOIP communications are established via VPN and pass through an IPS. The hardware MAC address is spoofed at a random interval and all data on the device is fullly encrypted and will self destruct via 35 pass Gutmann Algorithm after 5 failed attempts to bypass the screen lock.

Do I have anything to hide? No. But I do believe very strongly in personal privacy and having complete control of my device.
RetiredUser
RetiredUser,
User Rank: Ninja
6/25/2014 | 1:52:21 AM
Spy vs Spy
I'm one of the little guys.  Am I high tech?  Yes.  Do I work up in the 5-10% head space when it comes to using tech beyond the pale?  Yes.  But I still see myself as one of the little guys when it comes to the government.  Look, Big Bro – we don't have any secrets.  You know the bad and the good I've done.  Listen to my phone conversations, comb my email, and monitor my network traffic.  It's OK – I'm over it now.  But, for crying out loud, be smart about it.  Whether you do it through "legal" means or otherwise, you're still opening the door for everyone else out there to get to my information; and that I do care about.

See, for every encrypted tunnel out there is a host of hackers dying to look down it.  Snowden didn't scratch the surface with his revelations – I suspect he was really only stating the obvious.  The real issue is that, especially with the tech described in this article – our favorite cartoon Spy vs Spy has moved from anvils, bombs and guns to bots, malware, injection and sniffing.  Name the US government agency electronically connecting to your data and I'll show you a foreign government-employed hacker trying to ride that connection and share in the booty, and a host of cyber criminals right behind him.

So, what I'm asking you, Big Bro, is – and I can't believe I'm saying this – to please get better at spying on us, secure your connections and software better, and please keep all my private information just between us!


Edge-DRsplash-10-edge-articles
I Smell a RAT! New Cybersecurity Threats for the Crypto Industry
David Trepp, Partner, IT Assurance with accounting and advisory firm BPM LLP,  7/9/2021
News
Attacks on Kaseya Servers Led to Ransomware in Less Than 2 Hours
Robert Lemos, Contributing Writer,  7/7/2021
Commentary
It's in the Game (but It Shouldn't Be)
Tal Memran, Cybersecurity Expert, CYE,  7/9/2021
Register for Dark Reading Newsletters
White Papers
Video
Cartoon
Current Issue
The 10 Most Impactful Types of Vulnerabilities for Enterprises Today
Managing system vulnerabilities is one of the old est - and most frustrating - security challenges that enterprise defenders face. Every software application and hardware device ships with intrinsic flaws - flaws that, if critical enough, attackers can exploit from anywhere in the world. It's crucial that defenders take stock of what areas of the tech stack have the most emerging, and critical, vulnerabilities they must manage. It's not just zero day vulnerabilities. Consider that CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog lists vulnerabilitlies in widely used applications that are "actively exploited," and most of them are flaws that were discovered several years ago and have been fixed. There are also emerging vulnerabilities in 5G networks, cloud infrastructure, Edge applications, and firmwares to consider.
Flash Poll
Twitter Feed
Dark Reading - Bug Report
Bug Report
Enterprise Vulnerabilities
From DHS/US-CERT's National Vulnerability Database
CVE-2023-1172
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
The Bookly plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the full name value in versions up to, and including, 21.5 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that w...
CVE-2023-1469
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
The WP Express Checkout plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Stored Cross-Site Scripting via the ‘pec_coupon[code]’ parameter in versions up to, and including, 2.2.8 due to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. This makes it possible for authenti...
CVE-2023-1466
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
A vulnerability was found in SourceCodester Student Study Center Desk Management System 1.0. It has been rated as critical. This issue affects the function view_student of the file admin/?page=students/view_student. The manipulation of the argument id with the input 3' AND (SELECT 2100 FROM (SELECT(...
CVE-2023-1467
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in SourceCodester Student Study Center Desk Management System 1.0. Affected is an unknown function of the file Master.php?f=delete_img of the component POST Parameter Handler. The manipulation of the argument path with the input C%3A%2Ffoo.txt le...
CVE-2023-1468
PUBLISHED: 2023-03-17
A vulnerability classified as critical was found in SourceCodester Student Study Center Desk Management System 1.0. Affected by this vulnerability is an unknown functionality of the file admin/?page=reports&date_from=2023-02-17&date_to=2023-03-17 of the component Report Handler. The manipula...