Six additional countries identified as suspected Paragon spyware customers – CyberScoop
Researchers have identified suspected government customers of spyware company Paragon Solutions in six more countries that hadn’t previously been publicly identified, according to a report published Wednesday.
The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab said it mapped the infrastructure of Paragon’s Graphite tool after a tip from a collaborator, and found a subset of suspected Paragon deployments linked to Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Israel and Singapore. It also found potential links between Paragon and the Ontario Provisional Police.
The report also shines additional light on Paragon infections of activists and others in Italy, revealed in January. Citizen Lab concluded from its research that Paragon, a relatively new entrant in the spyware marketplace, might not have done enough to prevent abuses despite its marketing stance.
“Overall, the cases described in this report suggest that Paragon’s claims of having found an abuse-proof business model may not hold up to scrutiny,” the report reads. “We acknowledge that this report does not seek to cover the totality of Paragon cases, but rather a set of cases where targets have chosen to come forward at this time and in our report.
“However, the pattern in these cases challenges Paragon’s marketing approach which has claimed that the company would only sell to clients that ‘abide by international norms and respect fundamental rights and freedoms,’” it continued.
The six countries and the Ontario police service did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A Paragon official responded to the report by saying, in part, that it keeps clients confidential and may be legally restricted from speaking on national security and foreign policy matters.
“The brief summary of the report you sent includes several inaccuracies, but without additional details we cannot be more specific or provide comment for the record,” wrote John Fleming, executive vice chairman of Paragon. He didn’t elaborate on the inaccuracies when asked to do so by Citizen Lab.
Citizen Lab provided additional details in its report about Italian Paragon activity, including about a potential cluster targeting sea rescue operations for migrants in the Sahel and Sub-Saharan regions and the targeting of a personal friend of Pope Francis.
David Yambio, an Italian activist who is founder of the organization Refugees in Libya and whose phone Citizen Lab analyzed, said he was targeted by spyware during a period when he was sharing confidential information about torture victims with the International Criminal Court, The Guardian reported.
Italy has denied that it used spyware on journalists and activists.
Citizen Lab’s report worsens a “digital surveillance crisis” in Europe, said Donncha Ó Cearbhaill, Head of Amnesty International’s Security Lab.
“Of particular concern is the targeting of sea rescue organizations engaged in life-saving activities in the Mediterranean,” he said. “This adds a dangerous new digital threat to organizations already grappling with legal threats, obstruction and criminalization in Italy.”
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