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ForcedEntry is “one of the most technically sophisticated exploits.”
Enlarge / A man walks by the building entrance of Israeli cyber company NSO Group at one of its branches in the Arava Desert on November 11, 2021, in Sapir, Israel. (credit: Amir Levy | Getty Images)
The Israeli spyware developer NSO Group has shocked the global security community for years with aggressive and effective hacking toolsthat can target both Android and iOS devices. The company's products have been so abused by its customers around the world that NSO Group now faces sanctions, high-profile lawsuits, and an uncertain future. But a new analysis of the spyware maker's ForcedEntry iOS exploit—deployed in a number of targeted attacks against activists, dissidents, and journalists this year—comes with an even more fundamental warning: Private businesses can produce hacking tools that have the technical ingenuity and sophistication of the most elite government-backed development groups.
Google's Project Zero bug-hunting group analyzed ForcedEntry using a sample provided by researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, which published extensively this year about targeted attacks utilizing the exploit. Researchers from Amnesty International also conducted important research about the hacking tool this year. The exploit mounts a zero-click, or interactionless, attack, meaning that victims don't need to click a link or grant a permission for the hack to move forward. Project Zero found that ForcedEntry used a series of shrewd tactics to target Apple's iMessage platform, bypass protections the company added in recent years to make such attacks more difficult, and adroitly take over devices to install NSO's flagship spyware implant Pegasus.
Apple released a series of patches in September and October that mitigate the ForcedEntry attack and harden iMessage against future, similar attacks. But the Project Zero researchers write in their analysis that ForcedEntry is still “one of the most technically sophisticated exploits we've ever seen.” NSO Group has achieved a level of innovation and refinement, they say, that is generally assumed to be reserved for a small cadre of nation-state hackers.
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Elsevier and other academic publishers see ‘pirate’ site Sci-Hub as a major threat to science and their own multi-billion-dollar industry. Through a lawsuit in India, the companies hope to have the site blocked but Sci-Hub is actively fighting this request in court. According to the site’s founder, the publishers are the real threat to the progress of science.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
By offering free access to millions of ‘paywalled’ research papers, Sci-Hub is often described as “The Pirate Bay of Science”.
The site is used by researchers from all over the world, to access papers they otherwise have a hard time accessing. For some, the site is essential to do their work.
The major academic publishers such as Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society are not happy with the rogue research library. These companies have made billions of dollars by selling access to research and see Sci-Hub as a direct threat to their business model.
This has resulted in several lawsuits including two that were won by publishers through default judgments in U.S. courts.
Despite these rulings, Sci-Hub and its founder Alexandra Elbakyan are not backing down. On the contrary, the site has become a household name in many academic institutions and most users care very little about the copyright angle. They see more value in open access to research.
Sci-Hub’s latest legal battle, which takes place in India, is the first one where the site will actively put up a defense. Soon after the legal action was announced last year lawyers came in to offer their help, while local researchers pledged their support.
The broader academic community is watching the case closely as well. Nature, which itself is one of the most prestigious scientific publications, highlighted the ongoing legal battle in an article yesterday, including some comments the publishers behind the Indian lawsuit.
“Pirate sites like Sci-Hub threaten the integrity of the scientific record, and the safety of university and personal data,” the publishers told Nature, adding that the site uses stolen credentials and compromises the security of libraries and higher education institutions.
Nature also heard Sci-Hub’s founder who characterized the publishers’ comments as “empty accusations”. However, Elbakyan said more than that but not all her comments made it into the article.
In fact, the full response, posted by Elbakyan on Twitter, shows that she sees the publishers are the real threat to science.
“Academic publishers threaten the progress of science: open communication is fundamental property of science and it makes scientific progress possible. Paywalled access prevents this and is a great threat to science.”
“The great threat is also when the whole scientific knowledge became the private property of some corporation such as Elsevier, that has full control of it. That is a threat, and not Sci-Hub,” Elbakyan adds.
Sci-Hub’s founder also rejects the notion that the site threatens the integrity of the scientific record. It simply republishes the same articles that are normally behind a paywall and doesn’t alter anything.
Similarly, the accusation that Sci-Hub threatens the safety of university and personal data is refuted at well. Those are a bunch of empty words. It sounds dangerous but it’s not backed up by any evidence, Elbakyan notes.
The people who use Sci-Hub do so because they have no other affordable option to access the academic research they need for their own work.
“Nobody is complaining about ‘compromised security’ except academic publishers. It is touching to see, how caring they are about others. Except, that they do not care at all about millions of people who cannot access science because they do not have money.”
“Do they have any actual case when Sci-Hub somehow compromised the security of any library or a person? Any person that complained about credentials that were ‘stolen’ from them? Or is it again, nothing more but empty accusations.”
Sci-Hub’s founder gets a lot of support from researchers from all over the world and her recent tweet is no exception to this. There are dozens of academics openly supporting her on Twitter.
Ultimately, however, the ‘legality’ of Sci-Hub will be decided in court. While it’s clear that Sci-Hub takes copyrighted content without permission, the defense argues that this is for the greater good, so it’s ‘fair dealing’.
Sci-Hub’s lawyers Shrutanjaya Bhardwaj and Sriya Sridhar are confident that they can make this case. They tell Nature that, if Sci-Hub wins, this could have a global ripple effect, which may change how foreign courts see the site.
Of course, the opposite is also true. Thus far Sci-Hub has been blocked in several countries already, so a ‘fair dealing’ victory would be an outlier.
Elbakyan hopes that Sci-Hub will eventually be recognized as a legal site. In that sense, not much has changed since we first interviewed here six years ago. Since then the legal pressure has increased, but so have the public support and users of the site.
Below is Sci-Hub founder’s full response to Nature’s inquiry, as posted on Twitter.
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From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Die neuen MacBook Pro haben eine Einkerbung im Display. Die Notchmeister-App hängt festliche Beleuchtung an den Vorsprung. Eine Glosse von Andreas Donath (
Der Prozess um Theranos-Gründerin Elizabeth Holmes geht in die entscheidende Phase: Die Geschworenen entscheiden nun, ob Holmes Investoren betrogen hat. (
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