Page 23 - atoday
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TECHNOLOGY A23
Friday 16 October 2015
Despite exposure, new nations joining cyberespionage game
RAPHAEL SATTER In this Oct. 13, 2014, file photo, pro-democracy activists, from left, Moosa Abd-Ali Ali, Saeed Al- the country’s parliament.
Associated Press Shehabi and Jaafar Al Hasabi listen during a news conference in London. “Impudent opposition poli-
LONDON (AP) — Research- ticians” were among the
ers say some smaller, poor- Associated Press spyware’s top targets, the
er nations are now using memo said.
spy software, suggesting ment on the findings. in breaking up organized that “hordes of data” had There was no immediate
that recent data leaks and Like many malicious pro- crime and human-traffick- been gathered by the spy- way to independently au-
lawsuits have not deterred grams, FinFisher’s products ing rings, but FinFisher’s ware. thenticate the briefing,
governments from invest- work by infecting their tools have also been found One objective, the seven- although Privacy Interna-
ing in off-the-shelf cyberes- targets’ computers and spying on journalists, hu- page briefing said, was “to tional has a record of pub-
pionage products. phones, copying messag- man rights defenders and manage and control the lishing genuine material
Internet watchdog group es, recording conversa- lawyers. media houses and oppo- about surveillance compa-
Citizen Lab said in a report tions and even activating Privacy International’s re- sition politicians, which in nies’ operations. Ugandan
Thursday that it had found webcams. port said FinFisher had the worst case scenario, government spokesman
33 “likely government us- On its website, the Mu- been deployed against may involve blackmailing Ofwono Opondo did im-
ers” of FinFisher, one of nich-based company say opponents of Ugandan them especially after per- mediately respond to calls
the world’s best-known the spyware helps law President Yoweri Musev- sonal information is in our for comment.
purveyors of spyware. A enforcement and intel- eni during 2012 protests hands.” Hacking impudent op-
report released separately ligence agencies bring against his government. The briefing, marked “SE- ponents doesn’t come
by London-based Privacy criminals to justice. Among The advocacy group pub- CRET,” went on to say that cheap. Among the docu-
International on Thursday the documents leaked last lished what it said was a FinFisher’s tools had been ments leaked last year was
said the same spyware year was a brochure tout- leaked Ugandan presiden- deployed in hotels, govern- a price list suggesting that
had seen use in Uganda ing the software’s success tial briefing which boasted ment agencies and even a suite of FinFisher prod-
to hack, intimidate and ucts — including a full set
blackmail members of the of attack software, booby-
opposition. trapped thumb drives and
Business appears good for nearly a dozen different
FinFisher, despite a dam- training courses — retailed
aging hack last year which for some 3 million euros
exposed reams of client in- ($3.5 million.) That price tag
formation and other confi- doesn’t seem to have put
dential data. off Uganda or other gov-
“They seem to have a ernment agencies in Para-
healthy client base, de- guay, Kenya, Macedonia
spite the fact that they and Bangladesh. The latter
were hacked and cus- were four were among the
tomer data was exposed,” countries newly identified
Citizen Lab’s Bill Marczak as likely users of FinFisher
wrote in an email. “Far from by Citizen Lab, which is
observing a drop in FinFish- based at the University of
er servers, we’re detecting Toronto’s Munk School of
more than ever before.” Global Affairs and has long
FinFisher did not return kept tabs on government
messages seeking com- hacking.q
Yahoo’s updated email app
aims to kill the password
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — word if they prefer. research firm comScore. This Jan. 14, 2015 photo shows a sign outside Yahoo’s
Yahoo is trying to phase The Sunnyvale, Califor- Gmail boasted 411 million,
out passwords with an up- nia, company wants to a 5 percent increase. headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. Yahoo is trying to phase out
date to its mobile applica- change the way Internet The updated app also will
tion for its email service. security works because Ya- make it possible to con- passwords with an update to its mobile application for its email
The renovated app re- hoo “is synonymous with nect Yahoo email with
leased Thursday for iPhones the Internet in many coun- competing services from service. Associated Press
and Android devices will tries,” said Jeff Bonforte, Outlook.com, Hotmail and
include an option called the company’s senior vice AOL. The company hopes their messages on mobile most of the company’s
“Account Key” that allows president of communica- to make the app work with devices. Email users also revenue.
people to sign into their tion products. “We always Gmail eventually, though it are an important source Yahoo’s revenue has been
email accounts by press- feel a burden of consumer isn’t giving a timetable for of traffic at Yahoo’s other declining or barely grow-
ing on a notification sent to protection.” making it happen. major services, including ing for years as adver-
their smartphones instead Although Yahoo email re- An update to the Gmail sports, entertainment and tisers pour more of their
of typing in a password. mains among the world’s app earlier this year al- finance that help sell the money into Google and
Yahoo believes the new most popular, it has been lowed its users to connect advertising that generates Facebook.q
feature will be more secure eclipsed in recent years by with Yahoo email and Mi-
because most people rely Google’s Gmail. Yahoo’s crosoft’s Outlook.com.
on passwords that are easy email had 190 million users The app update is impor-
for hackers to guess. Ya- in August, a 16 percent de- tant to Yahoo Inc. be-
hoo’s email users can still cline from the same time cause more than half of its
continue to type in a pass- last year, according to the email users primarily check
