Thursday 18 September 2014

I spy with my little eye.....


Apparently NSW Police has been spending part of its annual budgets on surveillance malware programs which will remotely infect the computers/mobile devices of its preferred target individuals.

In today’s money that is well over $2 million for the five licenses which are currently active.

Wikileaks Spy Files

The company FinFisher (part of the Gamma Group headquaqtered in Munich, Germany) obligingly supplies this description of FinSpy:


While FinIntrusion allows NSW Police to do the following:

The Australian Federal Police will neither confirm nor deny that is also using this malware.

On 6 August 2014 Netzpolitik reported that:

A hacker claims to have hacked a network of the surveillance technology company Gamma International and has published 40 gigabytes of internal data. A Twitter account has published release notes, price lists – and source code. Malware researchers and human rights activists welcome the publication, Gamma itself refuses to comment.

In November 2012 a public service announcement prepared by the US Government Internet Crime Complaint Center identified FinFisher as supplying malware and spyware capable of taking over the components of a mobile device. When installed the mobile device can be remotely controlled and monitored no matter where the Target is located. FinFisher can be easily transmitted to a Smartphone when the user visits a specific web link or opens a text message masquerading as a system update.

Gamma Group’s Martin Münch/Muench with exploit seller VULPEN’s CEO & Head of Research Chaouki Bekrar
July 2014 
Source: Netspolitik

Despite the police having accquired a number of new 'toys', Australian government requests for user data held by Google Inc continue:

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