Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dozens of Al Jazeera journalists allegedly hacked using NSO Group spyware

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 26 posts

Re: Dozens of Al Jazeera journalists allegedly hacked using NSO Group spyware

#11

Post by av3csr »

fortran77 wrote: post #8
dessant wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My original comment asked if we should assume that the NSO Group arsenal is shared with the Israeli Intelligence Community, given that we've talking about an Israeli company. That's a valid question, because hosting such a company is a major diplomatic liability. Why would you consider this question, as you said, a slander?

But they are not an "Israeli Company". They are owned by a European Private Equity group, with HQ in London, despite what the Guardian's "reporter" "Jassar Al-Tahat" says. Should we assume that comments and logs for Hacker News are all shared with the UK Intelligence Community because Paul Graham was born in Weymouth, UK?

Technically the joint venture between Novalpina Capital and two of the original founders have a majority stake on the company.

Is ARM a Japanese company because it's (currently) owned by SoftBank? Will it be American when Nvidia takes over? Or are they a British company because they are based in the UK?

Re: Dozens of Al Jazeera journalists allegedly hacked using NSO Group spyware

#12

Post by dessant »

fortran77 wrote: post #8
dessant wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My original comment asked if we should assume that the NSO Group arsenal is shared with the Israeli Intelligence Community, given that we've talking about an Israeli company. That's a valid question, because hosting such a company is a major diplomatic liability. Why would you consider this question, as you said, a slander?

But they are not an "Israeli Company". They are owned by a European Private Equity group, with HQ in London, despite what the Guardian's "reporter" "Jassar Al-Tahat" says. Should we assume that comments and logs for Hacker News are all shared with the UK Intelligence Community because Paul Graham was born in Weymouth, UK?

> But they are not an "Israeli Company". They are owned by a European Private Equity group, with HQ in London, despite what the Guardian's "reporter" "Jassar Al-Tahat" says.

Yes, Novalpina Capital purchased a majority stake in NSO Group in February 2019. NSO Group was and still is an Israeli company, with headquesters in Herzliya, Israel. The company will cease to be an Israeli company, when it stops being under the jurisdiction of Israel.

Again, I don't understand how any of this made my question a slander. And why are you mocking the author of the article?

> Should we assume that comments and logs for Hacker News are all shared with the UK Intelligence Community because Paul Graham was born in Weymouth, UK?

HN and Paul Graham are not in the weapons trade business, but yes, you should assume that all of this is monitored, though not because of Paul Graham's place of birth.

Re: Dozens of Al Jazeera journalists allegedly hacked using NSO Group spyware

#13

Post by Throwaway1771 »

fakedang wrote: post #4
0_____0 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More of a failing of AJ's IT dept than anything else. Not sure if they were using AJ issued devices but they should be on managed devices that get updated on schedule, which may have mitigated this attack. Journos aren't necessarily deeply technical folks, that's really not their core competency.

When you work in a sensitive environment such as the middle east as a journalist, one really needs to go overboard and keep an insulated protection layer - separate devices, clean contacts, Tor and VPN, the whole gamut. It is the journalist's responsibility in such environments to ensure their survival and make sure that they don't engage in something stupid. I presume AJ, just like the others, tends to use a lot of…

Everyone is.

Re: Dozens of Al Jazeera journalists allegedly hacked using NSO Group spyware

#14

Post by 90red »

dessant wrote: post #7
fortran77 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSO is owned by a European company Novalpina Capital with headquarters in London.

My original comment asked if we should assume that the NSO Group arsenal is shared with the Israeli Intelligence Community, given that we've talking about an Israeli company. That's a valid question, because hosting such a company is a major diplomatic liability. Why would you consider this question, as you said, a slander?

Israel sure does siphon off intel with all their companies, but it's not strictly limited to just them though.

Also it's definitely not slander, they always just seem to get pissy anytime one calls them out.

Re: Dozens of Al Jazeera journalists allegedly hacked using NSO Group spyware

#15

Post by filmgirlcw »

joemazerino wrote: post #2

Journalists can't seem to keep up with the latest threat model material. I'm wondering if a resource for journalist training is a good idea considering the resources stacked against them.

Many journalists who are frequently engaging in conversations that would be deemed highly sensitive are keeping up with the latest thread model material and following best security practice, moreover, the circumstances we know in this case make me question if any individual outside of the most security paranoid, could have prevented being hacked in this way.

This was an iOS 0-day that appears to have targeted iMessage [1] and worked via zero-click, meaning user interaction wasn’t necessary. CitizenLabs says that in one case, the initial vector appears to be Apple’s own servers.

So you’ve got people with modern (if not the latest) phones running the latest software on what is considered to be the most secure mobile operating system and you have highly-targeted attacks that appear to be state-sponsored, with high precision, going after these individuals.

What could education do to help in this case? Literally every single person I know, and this includes some extremely sophisticated security experts, would have been victims here too.

In the abstract, I agree with more training — though I’ll offer that these resources are widely available already in many newsrooms — but in this case, it would have done nothing.

[1]: https://citizenlab.ca/2020/12/the-great-ipwn-journalists-hac...

Re: Dozens of Al Jazeera journalists allegedly hacked using NSO Group spyware

#16

Post by filmgirlcw »

0_____0 wrote: post #3
joemazerino wrote: post #2

Journalists can't seem to keep up with the latest threat model material. I'm wondering if a resource for journalist training is a good idea considering the resources stacked against them.

More of a failing of AJ's IT dept than anything else. Not sure if they were using AJ issued devices but they should be on managed devices that get updated on schedule, which may have mitigated this attack. Journos aren't necessarily deeply technical folks, that's really not their core competency.

Read the details on this attack. They were running the latest software. I wouldn’t be surprised if the devices were managed in some way too. It doesn’t matter. This highly-targeted attack couldn’t be mitigated and that’s exactly the point.

Re: Dozens of Al Jazeera journalists allegedly hacked using NSO Group spyware

#17

Post by dessant »

fortran77 wrote: post #8
dessant wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My original comment asked if we should assume that the NSO Group arsenal is shared with the Israeli Intelligence Community, given that we've talking about an Israeli company. That's a valid question, because hosting such a company is a major diplomatic liability. Why would you consider this question, as you said, a slander?

But they are not an "Israeli Company". They are owned by a European Private Equity group, with HQ in London, despite what the Guardian's "reporter" "Jassar Al-Tahat" says. Should we assume that comments and logs for Hacker News are all shared with the UK Intelligence Community because Paul Graham was born in Weymouth, UK?

To add a personal note, I came here to ask questions, to learn something new, and to try understanding how any of this is allowed to happen. You've ruined my experience and this thread for no reason. Please don't ever do that again.

Re: Dozens of Al Jazeera journalists allegedly hacked using NSO Group spyware

#18

Post by saagarjha »

dessant wrote: post #17
fortran77 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are not an "Israeli Company". They are owned by a European Private Equity group, with HQ in London, despite what the Guardian's "reporter" "Jassar Al-Tahat" says. Should we assume that comments and logs for Hacker News are all shared with the UK Intelligence Community because Paul Graham was born in Weymouth, UK?

To add a personal note, I came here to ask questions, to learn something new, and to try understanding how any of this is allowed to happen. You've ruined my experience and this thread for no reason. Please don't ever do that again.

Especially because this hasn’t been the first time the commenter has done this. ‘fortran77, you’ve been around here a while. You should know better than to engage in pedantic nationalistic battles.

Re: Dozens of Al Jazeera journalists allegedly hacked using NSO Group spyware

#20

Post by 0_____0 »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #16
0_____0 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More of a failing of AJ's IT dept than anything else. Not sure if they were using AJ issued devices but they should be on managed devices that get updated on schedule, which may have mitigated this attack. Journos aren't necessarily deeply technical folks, that's really not their core competency.

Read the details on this attack. They were running the latest software. I wouldn’t be surprised if the devices were managed in some way too. It doesn’t matter. This highly-targeted attack couldn’t be mitigated and that’s exactly the point.

??? From TFA?

> Researchers at Citizen Lab said the apparent malicious code they discovered, which they claim is used by clients of Israel’s NSO Group, made “almost all” iPhone devices vulnerable if users were using an operating system that pre-dated Apple’s iOS 14 system, which appears to have fixed the vulnerability.

Edit: and that's almost not relevant to my point - what I'm saying is that journalists aren't inherently technical people, and that the work of reading reports on the latest exploits and vulnerabilities and developing countermeasures should probably go to someone else in their org

Post reply on HN