Report: Egypt acquired spyware from German company
According to a report by Amnesty, Egypt acquired spyware from Germany's FinFisher company
Ami Rojkes Dombe
| 01/10/2020
From the Amnesty report: The downloading of the fake Flash Player backdoored with FinSpy.
According to a report by Amnesty International, the German government approved the export of spyware called FinSpy to Cairo. FinSpy is a commercial spyware package produced by FinFisher Gmbh based in Munich. The software was seen in the past in countries like Bahrain, Ethiopia, and the UAE. And now, in Egypt too.
"FinSpy is a full-fledged surveillance software suite, capable of intercepting communications, accessing private data, and recording audio and video, from the computer or mobile devices it is silently installed on," the report says. "In September 2019, Amnesty International discovered samples of FinFisher’s spyware distributed by malicious infrastructure tied to the attacker group commonly known as NilePhish. likely to be state sponsored."
The group, according to the report, operates against human rights organizations and political activists in Egypt. Among other things, the samples found included ones for Linux and Mac OS operating systems. One of the questions is who operates these tools behind the cover of the groups with strange names. Well, one of the theories is that it is the Egyptian intelligence service whose role is to protect the country (or the president. In Egypt's case, the president is the country).
An article from 2016 sheds light on one of the secret entities in Egypt called the Technical Research Department or TRD that operates under the General Intelligence Service. It is a technological intelligence body that is responsible, among other things, for the use of surveillance technologies. It should be mentioned that a number of years ago, British company Gamma tried to sell spyware to Egypt. The French and Americans did too.
In conclusion, it should be mentioned that every sale of spyware from Germany requires the approval of the German parliament.
According to a report by Amnesty, Egypt acquired spyware from Germany's FinFisher company
From the Amnesty report: The downloading of the fake Flash Player backdoored with FinSpy.
According to a report by Amnesty International, the German government approved the export of spyware called FinSpy to Cairo. FinSpy is a commercial spyware package produced by FinFisher Gmbh based in Munich. The software was seen in the past in countries like Bahrain, Ethiopia, and the UAE. And now, in Egypt too.
"FinSpy is a full-fledged surveillance software suite, capable of intercepting communications, accessing private data, and recording audio and video, from the computer or mobile devices it is silently installed on," the report says. "In September 2019, Amnesty International discovered samples of FinFisher’s spyware distributed by malicious infrastructure tied to the attacker group commonly known as NilePhish. likely to be state sponsored."
The group, according to the report, operates against human rights organizations and political activists in Egypt. Among other things, the samples found included ones for Linux and Mac OS operating systems. One of the questions is who operates these tools behind the cover of the groups with strange names. Well, one of the theories is that it is the Egyptian intelligence service whose role is to protect the country (or the president. In Egypt's case, the president is the country).
An article from 2016 sheds light on one of the secret entities in Egypt called the Technical Research Department or TRD that operates under the General Intelligence Service. It is a technological intelligence body that is responsible, among other things, for the use of surveillance technologies. It should be mentioned that a number of years ago, British company Gamma tried to sell spyware to Egypt. The French and Americans did too.
In conclusion, it should be mentioned that every sale of spyware from Germany requires the approval of the German parliament.
