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Facebook says 50,000 users were monitored by cyber mercenary companies in 2021.

  • Cobwebs Technologies, an Israeli company with offices and clients in the US, has closed 200 accounts that collect information about their needs and engage in engineering to reveal secrets. The company is used by the police, according to investigators, and is also used to fight against freedom fighters, opposition politicians, and government officials in Mexico and Hong Kong. Cobwebs spokesman Meital Levi Tal told MIT Technology Review that the company was unaware of Meta’s findings and that it “operates in accordance with the rules and adheres to strict security standards.”
  • The Israeli company Cognyte has lost 100 accounts claiming to be in control of journalists and politicians around the world.
  • The Black Cube is an Israeli company linked to a series of criminal activities, including the reputation of spy journalists. Researchers on Facebook said they found the company was collecting information on a wide range of topics from Palestinian freedom fighters to people in the medical and power industries to academics, especially in Russia. The Black Cube allegedly created fake people including students, human rights activists, and filmmakers. Investigators say the company often makes friends with someone and then calls them to get the email they want, with the intention of trying to trick them into cheating. When asked to comment, the company denied the allegations and insisted that “all operations of the agents are fully in line with local law.”
  • Another Israeli company, Bluehawk CI, is already known for pretending to be a media and tricking people into launching a criminal program. Facebook said it had removed 100 accounts linked to the company which the company thought were being used excessively against what it wanted to include against opponents of the United Arab Emirates government and businessmen in the Middle East.
  • The Indian company BellTroX has been operating for at least seven years in the monitoring industry. Facebook deleted 400 accounts linked to a company that researchers say was used as a political and media tool and to harass victims, including doctors, lawyers, freedom fighters, and religious leaders in Angola, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, and Iceland.
  • The North Macedonia Cytrox company is committing fraud, investigators said. The company monitors journalists and politicians around the world. Cytrox is part of a consortium of intelligence and intelligence companies known as Intellexa. Officials at another Intellexa company, Nexa Technologies, were indicted earlier this year for their crackdown on dissent in Libya and Egypt.
  • Finally, an anonymous Chinese agency was linked to a major intelligence operation that involved the use of human engineering against targets and the development of a criminal program to spy on small groups in Xinjiang, China, as well as Myanmar and Hong Kong.

The parent company Facebook, Meta, which sued the Israeli company NSO Group in 2019, is sending business ban letters to all companies today as well as sharing information with about 50,000 people it has identified. The notification tells victims that a “smart player can look at your Facebook account” and devise security measures for their account, including privacy control.

The main purpose of the project, the researchers said, is to initiate a major dialogue on the companies under their control. They said they recommend promoting transparency and “knowing your customers” rules, expanding corporate alliances to deal with management companies, and increasing accountability through new rules and regulations.

The researchers added that not all corporate activities appear to be in conflict with well-known rules – some of these companies are known to use Facebook and Instagram to comply with legal and prudent laws. But both planets have set up legal systems to legally request data in a way that is consistent with the correct order and transparency.

“The goals we see from these companies do not look that way,” Gleicher said. “It is targeting people in all areas. These companies are designed to hide who their customers are. If you are a foreign government that wants to make it harder for security guards to find you, you are hiring a company like this to create a conflict between you and the harm that happens. ”

Following the resignation and cancellation of several accounts, Gleicher did not rule out future prosecutions against the offending companies. However, the researchers say that leaving the job of screening recruits would be difficult.

“When we see networks operating in this way, we take an online approach,” said David Agranovich, director of risk management at Facebook. “We download all their activities from the platform at the same time. And knowing that they are enemy forces, we will try to get them off the platform. ”


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