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Updated December 17th, 2021 at 11:50 IST

Facebook bans 7 'surveillance' companies for spying on 50,000 users, one from India

Facebook’s recent crackdown on spy firms is a result of the social media giant’s months-long investigation against “cyber mercenary” industry, informed Meta.

Reported by: Zaini Majeed
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IMAGE: AP/Unsplash/Pixabay | Image:self
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Facebook has banned at least seven “surveillance” linked companies from its platforms that were spying on nearly 50,000 users, indiscriminately targetting people in over 100 nations. The providers were based in China, Israel, India, and North Macedonia. Facebook’s parent company Meta will send warnings to the victims of surveillance, informing them of the malicious activity by the spyware firms that were “indiscriminately” targeting the people online. 

Facebook’s recent crackdown on the spy firms is a result of the social media giant’s months-long investigation against the “cyber mercenary” industry, Meta informed in a release. The global surveillance-for-hire industry targets elaborate, collect intelligence, manipulate, and compromise the devices of those targeted across the internet.

"The surveillance-for-hire industry looks like indiscriminate targeting on behalf of the highest bidder," Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security policy at Meta, told a press briefing.

The surveillance for hire firms was discreetly tracking the unsuspecting human rights activists, government critics, celebrities, journalists, and citizens in more than 100 countries. These companies were also linked to some 1,500 accounts on both Facebook and Instagram, Meta informed. The Facebook parent firm further stressed that it will send warning notices to 48,000 people, whose information the company believes, was compromised online. 

Facebook's warning. Credit: Meta

The company disabled seven entities that targeted people across the internet in over 100 countries. It also shared its latest findings with the security researchers, and other platforms, and policymakers. Meta also issued Cease and Desist warnings to the customers and also alerted civilians in countries, who it believes was targeted, to help them strengthen their account’s security. 

"These cyber mercenaries often claim that their services only target criminals and terrorists," Meta’s statement read. "We have banned them from our services.” "Targeting is in fact indiscriminate and includes journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes, families of opposition members, and human rights activists," it added.

India-based BellTroX blocked

According to Facebook, the Israeli company that designed much-debated ‘Pegasus’ spyware, allegedly distributed to the governments to enable surveillance “is only one piece of a much broader global cyber mercenary industry.”  Meta targetted accounts based and founded in Israel including Cobwebs Technologies, Cognyte, Black Cube, and Bluehawk CI. India-based BellTroX, North Macedonian firm Cytrox and an unidentified entity in China was also blocked and removed from Facebook’s platform. 

“While the ‘cyber mercenaries’ often claim that their services only target criminals and terrorists, our months-long investigation concluded that targeting is in fact indiscriminate and includes journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes, families of opposition and human rights activists,” said Meta in its official release on Dec. 16. 

What Is Surveillance-For-Hire companies that Meta cracked down?

Companies that link themselves to the surveillance-for-hire industry collect intelligence from across the internet and targets accounts to manipulate into revealing sensitive, confidential and useful information. These firms compromise the devices and accounts of the people that it targets. They also sell sprawling, and intrusive software tools and surveillance services indiscriminately to any customer across countries worldwide. “We observed three phases of targeting activity by these commercial players that make up their “surveillance chain”: Reconnaissance, Engagement, and Exploitation,” Meta explained. 

The first phase automates the data collection from across the internet from users ‘silently profiled’ by cyber mercenaries on behalf of their clients. Information is extracted from blogs, social media, knowledge management platforms like Wikipedia and Wikidata, news media, forums and “dark web” sites. In the next stage, these companies solicit information by tricking users into clicking on malicious links or files. The final stage manifests as what’s commonly known as “hacking for hire” wherein the customers are targetted using phishing domains to hack credentials to sensitive accounts such as email, financial services, and corporate networks, and social media accounts. 

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Published December 17th, 2021 at 11:49 IST

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