“So who were the managers of E-Surv Is
it possible that they were at the service of 007
? The Public Prosecutor of Naples asked Aise and Aisi if they have Exodus and the Intelligence agencies would have admitted that they had bought it but not used it because it was defective. An explanation that is not sufficient, however, and therefore other checks have already been initiated ”, Corriere della Sera wrote today. All the news on the Exodus case
For about two years, someone has been distributing malware capable of targeting victims’ devices, stealing their data, information and exposing them to third-party attacks. This is the all-Italian story of Exodus, a malware developed by the Calabrian company eSurv, which produces surveillance solutions.
In the past few hours, the handcuffs have been released for the managers, the administrator Diego Fasano of E-surv srl, owner of the spy software Exodus, and the technical director of the same company, Salvatore Ansani, considered the creator of the platform that inoculated the spy virus . Let’s make a point. WHAT IS EXODUS
Let’s start from the beginning. Exodus is a spyware created by the Calabrian company eSurv with the aim of spying on people who have ended up under investigation. The software was developed as part of a project funded by the State Police, intended for use in investigations.
Spyware can, among other things, record phone calls, ambient audio, copy sms and phone numbers into the address book and read the position through the gps of the infected phone.SPIED EVEN UNINQUIRED PEOPLE
However, people who were not investigated were also spied on. One of the suspects, Francesco Pomo, an IT specialist, allegedly admitted to the magistrates that he had created and placed on the network a series of masked apps on the Google Play Store: anyone who had downloaded the app saw his phone infected. WHAT HAPPENED
“After having inoculated the virus in the target device, the virus exfiltered the data from the targets, making them travel in clear text on an encrypted channel and once they arrived at their destination they were stored in clear text on the servers … Once posted on the servers, the data in clear they were stored in folders without a database-governed structure. The folders were organized by identification code ”, explained Pomo according to the chronicles.INTERCEPTIONS ON “VOLUNTARY” SUBJECTS
Pomo also reported that Ansani himself had confirmed the illegal wiretapping of “voluntary” subjects (ie not under investigation) and more times he would have surprised him listening to them both with headphones and with the PC speakers turned on in wiretapping office. FIGHTING TERRORISM
There is more. Also according to what the employee of the company who decided to collaborate with the magistrates reports, Ansani had on his monitor the photographs of an Arab man who practiced a strange ritual of purification of his own blood, Corriere della Sera wrote today.
“I remember seeing on Ansani’s monitor some photographs of a subject of likely Arab origin who practiced a strange ritual of purification of his own blood and Ansani told me that we had to be proud because we were helping the State and the nation to fight terrorism and to keep our loved ones are safe “. EXODUS EXPLOITED A FAULT OF WINDOWS AND ANDROID
All this was possible by exploiting a “bug” (a flaw) identified by the E-Surv team in operating systems, including Windows and Android. The company had bought a program that allowed it to infect widely used applications such as Spotify or Google Chrome. QUESTIONS FROM THE CORRIERE DELLA SERA
“Who were the managers of E-Surv Could
it be that they were at the service of 007?
The Naples Prosecutor’s Office asked Aise and Aisi if they have Exodus and the Intelligence agencies would have admitted that they had purchased it but not used it because it was defective. An explanation that is not sufficient, however, and therefore other checks have already been initiated ”, Corriere della Sera wrote today. THE STOLEN DATA
Eighty terabytes of data referring to interceptions (including information on the investigation of many public prosecutors throughout Italy) were stolen, for over 800 interception activities. 234 of these were carried out without authorization. WHERE THE DATA IS STORED
The data was stored in two foreign clouds owned by Amazon, which the magistrates of Naples had seized to block any unauthorized access.A CLEAR SIGNAL FOR PRIVACY PROTECTION
“It is legitimate to be pleased that justice is able to regain its spaces. And the satisfaction is even greater in a case in which the disturbance of digital stillness was unintentionally triggered by the judiciary and intelligence with the request for a technological solution to acquire data and conversations from smartphone and tablet users “, commented the Italian general of the Finance Police, on leave, Umberto Rapetto. “The arrest of one of the owners of the Catanzaro company who had packaged” Exodus “is a strong signal that testifies to the determination to restore the right balance between the investigative needs, the right of each citizen to protect the confidentiality of their data and restricted perimeter in which the evidence of crime of those who have been subjected to investigation must be maintained “.
