{"id":8328,"date":"2015-05-21T06:44:23","date_gmt":"2015-05-21T11:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8328"},"modified":"2015-05-21T06:44:23","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T11:44:23","slug":"spy-agencies-target-mobile-phones-app-stores-to-implant-spyware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8328","title":{"rendered":"Spy agencies target mobile phones, app stores to implant spyware"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"story-headline\">\n<h3 class=\"story-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/spy-agencies-target-mobile-phones-app-stores-to-implant-spyware-1.3076546\" target=\"_blank\">Spy agencies target mobile phones, app stores to implant spyware<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"story-deck\"><strong>Users of millions of smartphones put at risk by certain mobile browser gaps, Snowden file shows<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Canada and its spying partners exploited weaknesses in one of the world&#8217;s most popular mobile browsers and planned to hack into smartphones via links to Google and Samsung app stores, a top\u00a0secret document obtained by CBC News shows.<\/p>\n<p>Electronic intelligence agencies began targeting UC Browser \u2014\u00a0a massively popular app in China and India with growing use in North America \u2014\u00a0in late 2011\u00a0after discovering it leaked revealing details about its half-billion users.<\/p>\n<p>Their goal, in tapping into UC Browser and also\u00a0looking for larger app store vulnerabilities, was to collect data on suspected terrorists and other intelligence targets \u2014\u00a0and, in some cases, implant spyware on targeted\u00a0smartphones.<\/p>\n<p>The 2012 document shows that\u00a0the surveillance agencies exploited the weaknesses in certain mobile apps\u00a0in pursuit of their national security interests, but it appears they didn&#8217;t\u00a0alert the companies or the public\u00a0to these\u00a0weaknesses. That potentially put millions of users in danger of their data being accessed by other governments&#8217;\u00a0agencies, hackers\u00a0or criminals.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All of this is being done in the name of providing safety and yet \u2026 Canadians or people around the world are put at risk,&#8221; says the University of Ottawa&#8217;s Michael Geist, one of Canada&#8217;s foremost experts on internet law.<\/p>\n<p>CBC News analysed the top\u00a0secret document in collaboration with U.S. news site\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/firstlook.org\/theintercept\/\">The Intercept<\/a>, a website that is devoted in part to reporting on the\u00a0classified\u00a0documents leaked by U.S.\u00a0whistleblower Edward Snowden.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">The so-called Five Eyes intelligence alliance \u2014\u00a0the spy group comprising Canada, the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand \u2014\u00a0specifically sought ways to find and hijack data links to servers used by Google and Samsung&#8217;s mobile app stores, according to the document obtained by Snowden.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spy agencies target mobile phones, app stores to implant spyware Users of millions of smartphones put at risk by certain mobile browser gaps, Snowden file shows Canada and its spying partners exploited weaknesses in one of the world&#8217;s most popular mobile browsers and planned to hack into smartphones via links to Google and Samsung app [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5554,103,3544,3000,249,2711,378,5551,4543,5553,577,5550,747,765],"class_list":["post-8328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-app-store","tag-canada","tag-cbc","tag-cbc-news","tag-edward-snowden","tag-five-eyes","tag-google","tag-google-app-store","tag-intercept","tag-michael-geist","tag-nsa","tag-smartphones","tag-spyware","tag-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8329,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8328\/revisions\/8329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}