In December 2018, Amnesty International documented widespread targeted phishing attacks against human rights defenders (HRDs) in the Middle-East and North Africa, in the report “When Best Practice Isn’t Good Enough”. That report documented how attackers had specifically developed...

Amnesty International is supporting a legal action to take the Israeli Ministry of Defence (MoD) to court, to demand that it revokes the export license of NSO Group, an Israeli company whose spyware products have been used in chilling attacks on human rights defenders around the world. In a...

Novalpina Capital CC: NSO Group, Francisco Partners …… UPDATE 24 May 2019 Statement in response to Novalpina Capital’s letter of 15 May 2019 To: Stephen Peel Cc: Stefan Kowski, Bastian Lueken, Shalev Hulio, Vivek Krishnamurthy, Foley Hoag LLP We acknowledge receipt of Novalpina Capital’s letter of...

An investigation by Amnesty International has revealed that dozens of Egyptian human rights defenders have been targeted by phishing attacks since the beginning of this year, putting them in grave danger amid Abdelfattah al-Sisi’s government’s intensifying crackdown on dissent. Since January 2019...

A new Amnesty International investigation has found a wave of digital attacks that likely originated from government-backed bodies starting from early January 2019 and involving multiple attempts to gain access to the email accounts of several prominent Egyptian human rights defenders, media and...

Novalpina Capital CC: NSO Group, Francisco Partners …… February 18, 2019 We, the undersigned organizations, release this open letter to Novalpina Capital regarding the recent announcement of the buyout of NSO Group from Francisco Partners. We call on Novalpina Capital to publicly address our...

Novalpina Capital, the private equity firm that has supported NSO Group management to acquire the company from Francisco Partners, must immediately disclose how it plans to prevent further human rights abuses by NSO Group, which has been linked to several chilling attacks on human rights defenders,...

Amnesty’s latest course on digital security, launching on rdX January 28th, will teach you about digital threats, how to strengthen your security online and to take action to promote digital security and human rights worldwide. Malware. Phishing. Data retention. Mass surveillance. We know there are...

Summary Introduction  From the arsenal of tools and tactics used for targeted surveillance, phishing remains one of the most common and insidious form of attack affecting civil society around the world. More and more Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) have become aware of these threats. Many...

Amnesty International is taking legal advice in order to revoke the export licence of Israeli-based NSO Group, after it was revealed the cyber firm’s spyware had been used in an attempt to spy on an Amnesty staff member. A recent investigation by Haaretz newspaper uncovered the firm’s sophisticated...

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, ACCESS NOW, REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS EU: Leak reveals states are ready to put human rights defenders at risk to protect surveillance industry 29 October 2018 EU member states must back proposed curbs on the export of surveillance equipment to abusive regimes, Access Now,...

By Danna Ingleton, Research and Policy Advisor at Amnesty International Last month one of my colleagues at Amnesty International received a suspicious WhatsApp message. It came from a number they didn’t recognize, and contained details about a protest supposedly taking place at the Saudi embassy in...