Major General Abbas Ibrahim, head of Lebanon's Directorate of General Security (DGS), attends an urgent security meeting with leaders of government security agencies. (photo credit: REUTERS)
Reuters: Lebanese security agency turns smartphone into selfie spycam: researchers
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Lebanon’s intelligence service may have turned the smartphones of thousands of targeted individuals into cyber-spying machines in one of the first known examples of large-scale state hacking of phones rather than computers, researchers say.
Lebanon’s General Directorate of General Security (GDGS) has run more than 10 campaigns since at least 2012 aimed mainly at Android phone users in at least 21 countries, according to a report by mobile security firm Lookout and digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
The cyber attacks, which seized control of Android smartphones, allowed the hackers to turn them into victim-monitoring devices and steal any data from them undetected, the researchers said on Thursday. No evidence was found that Apple (AAPL.O) phone users were targeted, something that may simply reflect the popularity of Android in the Middle East.
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More News On Reports That Lebanon’s Intelligence Spied On Android Smartphones Worldwide
Lebanese Intelligence Turned Targets' Android Phones Into Spy Devices, Researchers Say -- New York Times
General Security bungles global spying scheme: report -- Daily Star
Report links hacking campaign to Lebanese security agency -- AP
Lebanese Government Hackers Hit Thousands of Victims With Incredibly Simple Campaign -- Motherboard
Lebanese intelligence 'hacks smartphones' in mass spying operation -- Al Arabiya
Lebanon’s Intelligence Accused of Using WhatsApp Phishing to Spy -- Asharq Al-Awsat
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