Facebook's parent company - Meta: Israeli cyber companies attacked thousands in 100 countries

Severe criticism of Israel from Facebook's parent company: Meta tonight published an extensive report on a months-long investigation conducted by the company, and mapped the activities of spy and surveillance companies on its platform. Of seven companies starring in the report, five are Israeli or have ties to Israel. In all, the seven companies in the report attacked about 50,000 people in 100 countries, including journalists, human rights activists, and opponents of the regime. Meta announced that it had blocked the companies on its platforms.
Of the seven companies starring in the report, five are Israeli or have ties to Israel. A total of seven companies in the report attacked about 50,000 people in 100 countries, including journalists, human rights activists, and opponents of the regime. Meta announced that it has blocked membership in its platforms.
"In recent months, there has been an increased focus on NSO, the company behind Pegasus," the report said. The global rental-tracking industry targets people online to gather information, persuade them to disclose information and hack into devices and accounts. "While cyber-mercenaries often claim their services and surveillance are targeted at criminals and terrorists, our investigation has found that they regularly attack journalists, opponents of the regime, critics of authoritarian regimes and families of opposition and human rights activists around the world."
The meta-report is published in parallel with the report of the Citizen Love Institute at the University of Toronto, which maps the activities of Cytrox, a company from northern Macedonia with deep Israeli ties that also appears in the meta-report. Other Israeli companies mentioned in the meta-report They are Cobwebs Technologies, Cognite, Bluehawk CI and Black Cube.
The companies that Meta identifies in the report operate from China, Israel, India and northern Macedonia, and conducted surveillance of people from more than 100 countries on behalf of their customers. We also shared the findings with security researchers, other platforms and decision makers. "We have informed people that we believe they have been attacked and have helped them strengthen the security of their accounts," the company said.
Meta divides the companies' activities into three phases - Reconnaissance, Engagement and Exploitation, when not all companies are active in all three phases. The first step, intelligence gathering, involves creating a profile of the targets, usually using software that gathers information from the web such as blogs, social media, news sites, Wikipedia, forums and Dark Web sites. One of the main means of gathering information is fake accounts on social media.
The second stage, the activation stage, is the most visible for purposes. The goal is to contact the targets or people close to them, to build trust, extract information, and get them to click on links to download malicious files. "To do this, operators use social engineering and fictional entities to reach people via email, phone calls, text messages or direct messages on social media," it read. "These entities are adapted to any purpose and appear credible."
The exploitation phase, the last phase in the surveillance chain, is the domain of companies that manufacture loophole tools. "Tool sophistication varies, and includes purchased spyware that is easily detected by antivirus software up to one-click and zero-click attacks that are sent to targets. The ultimate goal is to enable device-level tracking. At this point attackers can access any target phone or computer information, including passwords "Cookies, photos, videos, messages, contacts and secretly turn on the microphone, camera and location."
In total, Meta mentions the names of five Israeli companies or those with ties to Israel. Cobwebs Technologies was founded in Israel and has offices in Israel and the United States. It is active in intelligence gathering and operation and sells information gathering tools on various platforms. Meta's investigation identified customers in Bangladesh, Hong Kong, the United States, New Zealand, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Poland and more. The company's targets include activists, opposition figures and government officials in Hong Kong and India. Meta removed about 200 accounts operated by the company and its customers.
Cognate, which was split from Verint, operates by meta-collection and activation, and the company has removed 100 of its and its customers' accounts. It sells a tool that enables the management of fake accounts on social media. The company has customers in Israel, Serbia, Colombia, Kenya, Morocco, Mexico, Jordan, Thailand and Indonesia. Her goals have included journalists and politicians around the world.
The infamous Black Cube operates at all stages of the chain. It provides surveillance services, operates fake entities that impersonate students, association workers, human rights activists and film and television producers. According to Meta, its clients include individuals, companies and law firms around the world. The company's goals included companies from the medical, mining and energy industries, civil society organizations in Africa, Eastern Europe and South America, and Palestinian activists. Meta removed 300 company-related accounts.
Meta also calls for broader action against such companies by increasing transparency and control, creating cross-platform collaboration and local and international regulation. "Until recently, these mercenaries were rarely forced to bear the consequences of their actions," the report said. "For our response to be effective, it is important that technology platforms, civil society organizations and democratic governments increase costs for this global industry, and hurt the incentives for the misuse of their services."
BlackCube said in a statement: "BlackCube does not engage in phishing or hacking, and does not operate in the cyber worlds at all. BlackCube is an intelligence company that uses valid legal investigation methods to obtain evidence for litigation and arbitration. BlackCube works with the world's leading law firms in proving Bribery, Exposure to Corruption and Restitution of Hundreds of Millions in Smuggled Assets Courtesy.Black Cube operates under the legal advice it has received in each of the countries in which it operates.