NSO Group and Its Covid Tracker
May 30, 2020
As the COVID-19 virus globally spread, people want know where it is, when an individual was infected, and other pertinent information. Two week self-imposed isolation periods are mandatory for most potential carriers, but that is not enough to ease worried minds. TechCrunch reports that, “A Passwordless Server Run By Spyware Maker NSO Sparks Contact-Tracing Privacy Concerns.”
NSO is an Israeli company known for making mobile hacking tools. The company developed a COVID-19 app that tracks carriers. A security researcher discovered NSO’s content-tracing project “Fleming” online, he contacted them and NSO removed it. Fleming most likely contained fake data. The project was most likely a demonstration of NSO’s technology, but it still causes concern that people’s personal data is kept in a centralized database without proper security measures. The Israeli government has not approved usage of Fleming yet.
When the COVID-19 outbreak worsened in March, the Israeli government granted its security service Shin Bet unprecedented access to collecting mobile phone data to track potential infections. Fleming was one of two systems the government working on and NSO said it used location data purchased from data brokers. Data brokers sell data amassed from apps that collect and sell user data.
Content-tracking apps are beneficial during the pandemic, but an individual’s privacy should be taken into consideration. There are ways to have these apps and protect privacy rights:
“Most countries are favoring decentralized efforts, like the joint project between Apple and Google, which uses anonymized Bluetooth signals picked up from phones in near proximity, instead of collecting cell location data into a single database. Bluetooth contact tracing has won the support of academics and security researchers over location-based contact-tracing efforts, which they say would enable large-scale surveillance.”
NSO has possible ties to the Middle East, including an allegation that the Saudi Arabian government used the company’s Pegasus software to compromise Jeff Bezo’s cell phone. There is also a current legal battle that NSO built a hacking tool for Facebook’s WhatsApp. NSO Group is a provider of specialized services to government entities.
Whitney Grace, May 30, 2020
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