Spyware Puts Smartphone Users' Rights at Risk
According to security experts and civil liberties groups, governments around the world are using spyware—surveillance software that taps into individual smartphones, taking screenshots, reading emails and tracking users’ movements.
Over the past several years, private companies have begun selling advanced software that first appears as a text message with a link. When a person clicks on the link, the phone becomes infected. A third party can then read emails, take data and listen to audio, as well as track users’ movements.
The companies that sell this spyware exclusively to government agencies insist that the software must be used only in a legal manner, to fight crime and terrorism. However, security researchers and civil liberties groups contend that some governments use the programs to track human rights activists, journalists and others.
A recent story in The New York Times reported that activists and journalists in Mexico have received text messages and emails with links that, if clicked on, would infect their devices with spyware. In some cases, the messages appeared to come from legitimate sources, such as the U.S. Embassy.
The Mexican government says it does not target activists, journalists and others with spyware unless it has “prior judicial authorization.”
The use of nation-state spyware used to be limited to a handful of governments, said Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital rights group. But now that the price of the spyware has come down, countries can spend a few hundred thousand dollars to get the same capability.
Lookout is a California-based mobile security company, which receives monthly information from more than 100 million phones in 150 countries. It has seen spyware “in every kind of contentious place around the world,” said Mike Murray, vice president of security intelligence.
Countries that can’t make their own surveillance software can now buy sophisticated surveillance tools, said Murray. “What’s new is the enthusiasm [from] nation-states. ... It’s a capability they always wished they had. Now they have it.”
