(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The British company Gamma International has produced a malware that is used for spying on Bahraini activists through taking control of smart phones such as iPhone and Blackberry.The malware, which was allegedly designed for helping trap criminals, is being used by oppressive administrations including the al-Khalifa regime in Bahrain to spy on revolutionaries.According to a study by the University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs’ Citizen Lab, the Trojan called FinFisher remotely monitors calls, texts and emails, captures keystrokes, steals contact lists, turns on device microphone to record ambient sounds and tracks owners via GPS.Researchers have also found the signature of Martin Muench who is managing director of Gamma International as well as head of its FinFisher product portfolio in the malware used in Bahrain, media reports said.However, the company has denied that it sells software to Bahrain admitting “the ruling regime has been accused of perpetuating a string of human right violations, especially involving police force putting down anti-government protests.”The Citizen Lab survey said it has seen “structurally similar” Android spyware that communicate with command-and-control servers in Britain and the Czech Republic.IT security experts have warned that the malware, which can also hit Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian devices, is being used in limited but highly-targeted attacks, many of them by oppressive regime against political dissidents."Obviously, if your company is doing business in the Middle East you are already on high alert for attacks of this type,” said Cameron Camp, ESET IT security researcher.Gamma International is now under fire as questions are being asked about which countries the company should be doing business with, after Egyptian revolutionaries found evidence in the state security headquarters last year that the company had offered to sell FinFisher to Hosni Mubarak’s regime before it was toppled.Gamma International is only one in a long list of major companies with a record of helping government crackdowns on dissidents.Facebook, Twitter, Blackberry and Google (through its YouTube service) are some of the firms that limited or cut off their services to protesters during last year’s summer unrest in Britain.The four business giants did not allow activists to post messages or videos related to protests while their information was also revealed to the police and spy agencies seeking their arrests. /129
source : presstv
Monday
3 September 2012
7:30:00 PM
344335
The British company Gamma International has produced a malware that is used for spying on Bahraini activists through taking control of smart phones such as iPhone and Blackberry.