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US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

reuters.com

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Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#13

Post by dmantis »

There should be no difference with usual botnet owner/ransomware gangs and such companies. Management should go to prison for good 20-30 years for that and being extradited worldwide. Considering that ransomware gangs are probably less harmful to the society than guys who hack journalists and politicians, putting their lifes at literal risks, not just their pockets.

There should be no "legal" hacking of someone's devices apart from extraction of data from already convicted people in public court with the right to defend themselves

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#16

Post by mjg59 »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #14

I thought Whatsapp and signal share the same encryption

The encryption isn't alleged to have been compromised. The app itself deals with a lot of untrusted input (eg, thumbnailing video files you've been sent) so there's a meaningful attack surface outside the protocol itself.

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#17

Post by bawolff »

akira2501 wrote: post #6

Which is ironic considering the FBI and CISA just today announced that you _should_ use WhatsApp and not use SMS for two factor authentication. Although they point out the biggest problem is mobile users click on links in SMS. We live in a mostly captured and anti consumer environment. I'm not sure there's any great advice. https://www.newsnationnow.com/business/tech/fbi-warns-agains...

Whatsapp is not still vulnerable to the hack (as far as we know) and SMS applications have had similar vulnerabilities in the past.

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#18

Post by NolF »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #14

I thought Whatsapp and signal share the same encryption

The group exploited a bug in WhatsApp to deliver the spyware. It wasn't an E2E issue.

> A U.S. judge ruled on Friday in favor of Meta Platforms' (META.O), opens new tab WhatsApp in a lawsuit accusing Israel's NSO Group of exploiting a bug in the messaging app to install spy software allowing unauthorized surveillance.

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#19

Post by bawolff »

dmantis wrote: post #13

There should be no difference with usual botnet owner/ransomware gangs and such companies. Management should go to prison for good 20-30 years for that and being extradited worldwide. Considering that ransomware gangs are probably less harmful to the society than guys who hack journalists and politicians, putting their lifes at literal risks, not just their pockets. There should be no "legal" hacking of someone's dev…

Its not like this is that different than traditional "weapons" (i hate the "cyberweapons" analogy, but if the shoe fits).

Sell guns to governments, even unsavoury ones, it is very rare anything will happen to you except in pretty extreme cases. Sell guns to street gangs, well that is a different story. Like i don't think this situation is different because it is "hacking".

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