Cybersecurity

"We disclose a novel tracking method by Meta and Yandex potentially affecting billions of Android users. We found that native Android apps—including Facebook, Instagram, and several Yandex apps including Maps and Browser—silently listen on fixed local ports for tracking purposes.

These native Android apps receive browsers' metadata, cookies and commands from the Meta Pixel and Yandex Metrica scripts embedded on thousands of web sites. These JavaScripts load on users' mobile browsers and silently connect with native apps running on the same device through localhost sockets. As native apps access programatically device identifiers like the Android Advertising ID (AAID) or handle user identities as in the case of Meta apps, this method effectively allows these organizations to link mobile browsing sessions and web cookies to user identities, hence de-anonymizing users' visiting sites embedding their scripts.

This web-to-app ID sharing method bypasses typical privacy protections such as clearing cookies, Incognito Mode and Android's permission controls. Worse, it opens the door for potentially malicious apps eavesdropping on users’ web activity."

https://localmess.github.io/

#CyberSecurity #Android #Meta #Yandex #Surveillance #Privacy #DataProtection #GDPR #MobileApps

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"On Thursday, the findings of the parliamentary committee investigating Italy's usage of the spyware were published, in a rare incident of a Western state shedding light into a usually secretive world (tldr.nettime.org)

submitted 1 month ago by remixtures@tldr.nettime.org to c/cybersecurity@fedia.io

0 comments fedilink

"On Thursday, the findings of the parliamentary committee investigating Italy's usage of the spyware were published, in a rare incident of a Western state shedding light into a usually secretive world of intelligence agencies and covert surveillance.
The committee confirmed that Paragon provided Graphite to two Italian agencies, including the country's external intelligence service, starting in 2023. The version of Graphite provided did not include the ability to activate the phone's microphone or camera, the report said.

Instead, it only enabled its operators access to encrypted communications on the hacked devices. The report also confirmed that Graphite exploited a vulnerability in WhatsApp that Meta identified and patched in December 2024, one month before the spyware's activity was publicly disclosed.

The vulnerability's discovery also caused "panic" at Israel's military intelligence Unit 8200, according to the recent Israeli television report.

The Italian committee also confirmed Meta's claim that several activists involved in migrant rights in Italy had their phones hacked, including Luca Casarini, Giuseppe Caccia, and David Yambio – though in Yambio's case, the hack was carried out not by Graphite but by another unnamed spyware."

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2025-06-05/ty-article/.premium/italy-admits-activists-were-hacked-with-israeli-spyware-but-not-journalists/00000197-3ff4-d079-ab97-7ff5bd8a0000

#EU #Italy #CyberSecurity #Surveillance #Privacy #Spyware #Paragon #Graphite #Israel

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#Proxy Services Feast on #Ukraine’s IP Address Exodus (mastodon.thenewoil.org)

submitted 1 month ago by thenewoil@mastodon.thenewoil.org to c/cybersecurity@fedia.io

0 comments fedilink

#Proxy Services Feast on #Ukraine’s IP Address Exodus

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/06/proxy-services-feast-on-ukraines-ip-address-exodus/

#cybercrime #cybersecurity #Russia #politics

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