Citizen lab discovered new Israeli spyware Forcedentry for spying activists

Israeli cyber surveillance weapons have been getting much recognition across the world recently for assisting states in covert surveillance. Especially, for hacking activists and journalists. An interesting point to note about Israeli cyber firms like NSO Group is that they work with almost all countries offering business instead of sticking around the geo-political dynamics.

Recently, Canada based research group Citizen Lab discovered an exploit named “Forcedentry” while testing a Saudi activist’s iPhone in March. They believes that the “Forcedentry” exploit “is distinctive enough to point back to NSO,” as it uses a similar hacking mechanism to Pegasus spyware, which NSO developed and sold to several governments, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Morroco.

Researchers are of opinion that Forcedentry exploit used several names, including “setframed,” which was the process name used when dozens of journalists from Qatar-owned Al Jazeera were targeted with Pegasus spyware in July 2020.

Now this incident may suggest that Israeli technological support must be aligned with Saudi Arabia bloc however that is not entirely correct to conclude as it also served Qatar the opposite bloc in Middle East.

As per reports, Qatar itself took help from Israeli cyber firm, Candiru to strengthen its cyber operations. Israeli firm “Candiru” even received investment from Qatar Investment Bank. Candiru’s exploits then later have been linked to nation-state malware attacks observed in Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Qatar also hired Israeli based cybersecurity firm “Sdema Group” for providing security at the 2022 World Cup soccer championship in Qatar for a several dozen million-euro contract in past also.

Hence it can be concluded that Israeli technological firms and their off-shoots serve without any geo-political alignment.

Israeli technological offshoots are now spread across the world. For instance, Anyvision Interactive Technologies is one of Israel’s most curious facial recognition start-up used to monitor West Bank Palestinians at checkpoints on the way into Israel.

Israel considered being a super power nation in cyber warfare domain; it is Israel’s cyber intelligence private companies that are spreading their wings across the world. The Israeli group has been operating in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America; mostly in countries with weak regulatory bodies.

NSO Group just came in radar; however there are certainly many other Israeli technological off-shoots who would be serving States for sure.