Advanced mobile forensics products being used to illegally extract data from mobile devices, Amnesty finds. Police and intelligence services in Serbia are using advanced mobile forensics products and previously unknown spyware to illegally surveil journalists, environmental campaigners and civil rights activists, according to a report. The report shows how mobile forensic products from the Israeli firm Cellebrite are used to unlock and extract data from individuals’ mobile devices, which are being infected with a new Android spyware system, NoviSpy. Serbian authorities are using “surveillance technology and digital repression tactics as instruments of wider state control and repression directed against civil society”, according to Dinushika Dissanayake of Amnesty International, which authored the report. Dissanayake, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for Europe, said the report showed how Cellebrite products, used by police and intelligence services worldwide, could pose “an enormous risk” to rights activists “when used outside strict legal control”. Cellebrite’s tools for law enforcement agencies and government entities allow data to be extracted from an array of devices, including recent Android and iPhone mobile phones, and can unlock them without access to the device’s passcode. NoviSpy, while less technically advanced than highly invasive spyware such as Pegasus, still lets Serbian authorities capture sensitive personal data from a target phone and allows a phone’s microphone or camera to be turned on remotely. The report documents how Serbian authorities used Cellebrite products to enable NoviSpy spyware infections of journalists’ and activists’ mobile phones, including – on at least two occasions – during police interviews.
via guardian: Serbian authorities using spyware to illegally surveil activists, report finds
siehe auch: Serbia: Authorities using spyware and Cellebrite forensic extraction tools to hack journalists and activists. Serbian police and intelligence authorities are using advanced phone spyware alongside mobile phone forensic products to unlawfully target journalists, environmental activists and other individuals in a covert surveillance campaign, a new Amnesty International report has revealed. The report, “A Digital Prison”: Surveillance and the Suppression of Civil Society in Serbia,” documents how mobile forensic products made by Israeli company Cellebrite are being used to extract data from mobile devices belonging to journalists and activists. It also reveals how the Serbian police and the Security Information Agency (Bezbedonosno-informativna Agencija – BIA) have used a bespoke Android spyware system, NoviSpy, to covertly infect individuals’ devices during periods of detention or police interviews. (…) It enables the extraction of data from a wide range of mobile devices including some of the most recent Android devices and iPhone models, even without access to the device passcode. While less technically advanced than highly-invasive commercial spyware like Pegasus, NoviSpy – a previously unknown Android spyware – still provides Serbian authorities with extensive surveillance capabilities once installed on a target’s device. NoviSpy can capture sensitive personal data from a target phone and provide capabilities to turn on a phone’s microphone or camera remotely, while Cellebrite forensic tools are used to both unlock the phone prior to spyware infection and also allow the extraction of the data on a device. Critically, Amnesty International uncovered forensic evidence showing how Serbian authorities used Cellebrite products to enable NoviSpy spyware infections of activists’ phones.
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