Live data from Hacker News

NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

reuters.com

61–70 of 321 posts

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#61
post #5

Sometimes you just feel like using Signal instead

Not that I'm dissing Signal (it is my preferred platform, sadly not most used), but don't both WA and Signal use Open Whispers systems? So isn't there the potential that the same exploit might work on Signal?

The app its self is the weakness not the protocol. But also the article says "that exploited a flaw in WhatsApp-owned servers to help clients hack into the cellphones".

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes mainly from mapping the subdomains over time and analysis of the ASNs. This is key. You will often see a company with perhaps 200 or so subdomains, that only does business in the United States. But then you will see one subdomain that maps to ASN 4803 or whatever, which then leads to “China Telecom xinjiang”. In fact I encourage you to type: org:”China Telecom xinjiang” “NSFOCUS” into Shodan. Also look at th…

So you're saying "typical intelligence analyst stuff" is the reasoning here? Generally analysts produce questions which operations runs down to figure out if what they think is going on, is actually going on. Correct me if I'm wrong here but you're basically saying that you have done the first part and found some suspicious links but not the second part do develop actual evidence one way or the other, is that a fair…

I am writing this all on a phone and I am more than happy to produce a 5000 word report which will be posted in 96 hours. I will follow up via a comment here and also send to Michael Forsythe at the New York Times for additional review.

You have my word.

EDIT: 5000 words not pages

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#65
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, Signal is open source and not owned by Facebook, so I'm not sure why anybody uses WhatsApp instead.

Last I checked Signal's UX was worse enough that I'd be fighting a real uphill battle to get my friend group to switch.

That's reasonable, I suppose I'm lucky to have a friend group that universally prefers open source sorftware to good UX -- there was never really a question for us.

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#66

Dozens of tech companies around the world that were established in the last 4-5 years were done so entirely for the purpose of being fronts for spy agencies to engage in the vast collection of data. This extends also to shipping, licensing, and auditing companies. One example is https://www.pacificbasin.com/en/fleet/fleet.php Somehow they’ve managed to assemble the worlds 2nd largest cargo fleet in terms of dry weigh…

Wait, can you expand on some of these? Like ProtonMail and CreditKarma?

Wait, what?! This invalidates the entire list for me if there is no further proof...

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying "typical intelligence analyst stuff" is the reasoning here? Generally analysts produce questions which operations runs down to figure out if what they think is going on, is actually going on. Correct me if I'm wrong here but you're basically saying that you have done the first part and found some suspicious links but not the second part do develop actual evidence one way or the other, is that a fair…

I am writing this all on a phone and I am more than happy to produce a 5000 word report which will be posted in 96 hours. I will follow up via a comment here and also send to Michael Forsythe at the New York Times for additional review. You have my word. EDIT: 5000 words not pages

Awesome, looking forward to it.

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#68

Earlier this month the DOJ asked Facebook to "halt end-to-end encryption" by adding a backdoor to all of Facebook's apps. Perhaps this is a reason. https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/03/doj-facebook-end-to-end-...

I m confused, the top government officials are the children or the predators?

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#69

But I thought WhatsApp was end-to-end encrypted?

It is, but when you create a new contact you are trusting the WhatsApp service that the public key of the other party actually is their public key. The service can always give both parties a key of their own making instead of the actual keys of the parties. IIRC you can verify the public keys via QR codes but maybe such verification wasn't part of security practices. Thus if you hack the service, you may be able to read messages even though it's supposed to be end-to-end encrypted.

Another possibility is them faking a public annoucement to all Whatsapp users about some update or something. That announcement could then contain an image that exploits a vulnerability in the operating system's image decoder libraries. Or something like that. Without further information you can only speculate, but what's certain is that hacking the WhatsApp servers gives them ways to hack the phones that they previously didn't have.

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#70
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends who your adversaries are. It's one thing to say "they shouldn't use a facebook channel to talk securely", it's another to say "they shouldn't use a facebook channel on the same device as they use another channel to talk securely". My understanding of this was that it is the latter. Unfortunately people often don't have the luxury of doing the latter.

> Unfortunately people often don't have the luxury of doing the latter. What? Just don't install the Facebook or other social apps. I do have Telegram, but no other social media apps on my phone. If you need to communicate, then SMS / MMS / telephone is fine. What can be done with Facebook that cannot be done with normal SMS or MMS or phone calls or video calls?

SMS and MMS and phone calls are far less secure than whatsapp
Post reply on HN