/ world today news/ The Federal Security Service, together with the FSO of Russia, revealed an intelligence operation of the American intelligence services, carried out with the help of Apple (USA) mobile devices.
„In the process of ensuring the security of the Russian telecommunications infrastructure, anomalies were identified that are typical only for users of Apple mobile phones and were caused by the work of a previously unknown malware (VPO) that exploits software vulnerabilities provided by the manufacturer.” reported the Public Relations Center of the Federal Security Service of Russia on the website of the special service.
„Several thousand phones of this brand were found to be infected. At the same time, in addition to local subscribers, the facts of infection of foreign numbers and subscribers using SIM cards registered in diplomatic missions and embassies in Russia, including the countries of the NATO bloc and the post-Soviet space, as well as Israel, Syria and PRC.
The information received by the Russian special services testifies, as emphasized by the FSB, to the close cooperation of the American company Apple with the intelligence community of the United States, in particular with the NSA /ANS/. This confirms that “the stated user privacy policy of Apple devices is not true”.
„The company provides the US intelligence services with a wide range of opportunities to monitor both all persons of interest to the White House, including their partners in anti-Russian activities, and their own citizens.” the FSB said.
Not only Apple’s iPhones are spying on users, but all the software of another American IT giant, Microsoft, without exception.
The Windows 10 operating system (OS) intercepts all text typed on the keyboard, collects it into packets and sends it to Microsoft’s servers once every 30 minutes. Location data and data from nearby Wi-Fi networks are accumulated and also sent once every half hour. This allows you to track the user’s movements with an accuracy of several meters.
Microsoft claims that this option is required by the Bing search engine.
The microphone in Windows 10 is always on. Even after disabling the Cortana voice assistant, the microphone continues to record and save everything the user says to the hard drive, then sends the recording to the Microsoft server.
Windows 10 telemetry transmits literally everything to Microsoft: computer status and user activity, which programs are installed, which programs are currently running, and much more, including RAM fragments, to confidential data and passwords.
Windows 10 keeps track of the user’s file names and compares them to a constantly updated database of pirated programs. If matches are found, the user’s directory listings are sent to Microsoft. That is, the user’s computer itself brings for its owner.
As soon as Windows 10 is activated, information from the webcam is transmitted to Microsoft.
In 2017, Microsoft admitted that data was collected without the user’s knowledge and that DiagTrack, a key diagnostic service, could not be disabled. Microsoft Vice President Joe Belfiore said that the company is listening to the opinions of users and if the public considers this to be a problem, then the operation of the non-disabling diagnostic service can be changed.
After the update, DiagTrack allegedly disappeared from the list of services, but it was soon discovered that the diagnostic tracking service (DiagTrack) did not disappear. Microsoft simply renamed it the Connected User Experiences and Telemetry service.
Windows 11, Microsoft’s latest operating system, begins collecting telemetry as soon as it is downloaded to a user’s computer. Independent cybersecurity analysts from UK-based The PC Security Channel (TPCSC) tested Windows 11 using Wireshark network protocol analyzer and were amazed: “The latest and greatest operating system in the Windows line seems designed to spy on everything and everyone from the get-go.” .
If someone decides to hide from Microsoft’s all-seeing eye on one of the previous versions of Windows, then they still won’t get away. Recently released updates for Windows 7 and 8 contain modules that are identical to those that spy on users in Windows 10.
They spy on the users and the smartphones of the South Korean company Samsung. Spyware on its smartphones was discovered by the antivirus company Check Point back in 2017. However, Samsung did not react to the scandal and did not remove the spying options at all.
Users are also spied on “smart TVs” (Smart TVs), which are connected to the Internet and support a variety of applications, from Amazon Prime Video to YouTube. Many smart TVs support voice search, voice control, and have built-in webcams for video chat and gaming.
A 2017 Wikileaks publication describes how the CIA and British counterintelligence agency MI5 created the Weeping Angel audio recording app to spy on smart TV owners.
In fact, Smart TV has the functions of a classic smartphone, only with a huge screen. Most Android apps can also be installed on smart TVs, which means there is a risk of the same vulnerabilities as on a phone.
According to documents published by Wikileaks, the development of spyware for smartphones and smart TVs is carried out by a special department of the CIA, the Embedded Devices Branch (Embedded Systems Development Department). It was here that they created the Weeping Ange app for spying on smart TVs, ShoulderSurfer for extracting data from Microsoft databases, Pterodactyl for user “dedicated hardware solution to support media copying”SparrowHawk keylogger to record keystrokes on the user’s computer, GyrFalcon to track all the user’s connections and establish his name and password, SnowyOwl – to inject spyware into “the target asset”.
The CIA and Microsoft seek a monopoly on IT espionage and periodically expose the tricks of IT spies from other countries. So, in July of last year, Microsoft accused the Austrian intelligence company Decision Supporting Information Research Forensic (DSIRF) of developing the Subzero spyware, which allows you to remotely and silently penetrate the victim’s computer, his phone, network infrastructure and devices connected to the Internet. Subzero is similar to the Pegasus spyware by the Israeli company NSO Group, as well as another spyware DevilsTongue by the Israeli company Candiru.
In April 2023, Microsoft accused the Israeli company QuaDream of creating and distributing spyware, after which it was forced to cease operations.
All these spyware are tools of “next generation cyber warfare”. Anyone using foreign-made equipment can become subject to surveillance and provocation by foreign intelligence services.
PS Apple Inc denies information from the FSB that iPhone devices were used to spy on Russian users for the benefit of US intelligence agencies. “The company has never partnered with any government to place software traps in any Apple product and never will,” the statement said, as cited by Reuters.
Translation: ES
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