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Hacking. Disinformation. Surveillance. CYBER is Motherboard's podcast and reporting on the dark underbelly of the internet.
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The FSB said that in the course of checking the security of Russian telecommunications infrastructure, “anomalies were identified” caused by a previously unknown piece of malware. The FSB said “several thousand” phones were found to have been injected.The FSB went a step further and claimed that this malware shows “the close cooperation of the American company Apple with the national intelligence community, in particular the US NSA.” (Government agencies and private companies often find vulnerabilities in popular pieces of consumer technology and turn them into exploits to break into devices. Typically, this is done without the cooperation of the manufacturer, such as Apple).An Apple spokesperson told Motherboard in an email that “We have never worked with any government to insert a backdoor into any Apple product and never will.”Do you know anything else about these hacks? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.
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