![]() “That’s very much the authoritarian playbook,” Taylor says. Local reports suggest that the government’s Judiciary Department, in collaboration with the Ministry of Communications, is planning to take legal action against unauthorised sellers of the VPNs and other tools that help citizens circumvent online bans. Indeed, the Iranian government takes the threat posed by VPNs so seriously that it may be on the verge of banning them altogether. Once the government gets onto one, it’s compromised and they have to move on to another.” ![]() “They end up having to hop between them, as a sort of a ‘Whac-A-Mole’ routine with the regime. It also slowed the usage of the phone to a crawl to better record the victim’s actions.ĭownloading VPNs has been a popular way to evade this sort of attention, particularly during internet blackouts. “There are reports that protesters are using up to ten VPNs,” says Emily Taylor, associate editor of Chatham House and the CEO of cyber intelligence organisation Oxford Information Labs. ![]() This used phones to locate protesters through their proximity to cell towers. In November Tech Monitor reported that the Iranian government had been using a tool called SIAM to track its citizens. The main purpose of this update appears to be to avoid detection by security software, ESET said at the time. In October, one month into the protests, security analysts at ESET announced that a known spyware campaign targeting Iranian citizens, called Domestic Kitten, had released a new variant masquerading as a translation app, dubbed Furball. Use of spyware has characterised the protests in Iran. EyeSpy is the latest malware tracking Iranians It is not known who is deploying EyeSpy, but most of the victims are in Iran, with some in Germany and the US, the Bitdefender research says. □ Previously: /LcnU4McO圜- NetBlocks November 21, 2022 ![]() ⚠️ Confirmed: Network traffic data show a major disruption to internet service in #Iran as mobile internet is cut off for many users the incident comes amid a wave of new protests over the death of #MahsaAmini and reports of casualties □ “At this point attackers would have had much greater chances of unwary users downloading the tainted kits and installing the companion spyware app.” However, starting with the protests in September, more and more Iranians have turned to VPN solutions to attempt to evade the digital blockade that is disrupting access to social networks, or by blocking encrypted DNS services and text messages for most of the country’s 84 million citizens. “Most countries don’t sell their products in Iran because of the technology embargo. “We believe that the attackers targeted VPN apps as Iranians have very limited options when it comes to purchasing VPN solutions,” says Bogdan Botezatu, director of threat research and reporting at Bitdefender. Amini’s death led to protests on the streets of many Iranian cities and around the world. These measures were put in place in response to political unrest triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September, allegedly at the hands of Iranian police. “Moreover, by logging keypresses, attackers can obtain messages typed by the victim on social media or email, which can be used to blackmail victims,” it states.Īccording to the findings, reports of the malware being deployed have escalated since a digital blackout was imposed by the Iranian government, cutting off internet access to many citizens.
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