When Governments Attack: Malware Targeting Activists, Lawyers, and Journalists

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Presented at USENIX 2016 by

Eva Galperin

Targeted malware campaigns against activists, lawyers, and journalists are becoming extremely commonplace. These attacks range in sophistication from simple spear-phishing campaigns using off the shelf malware, to APT-level attacks employing exploits, large budgets, and increasingly sophisticated techniques. Activists, lawyers and journalists are, for the most part, completely unprepared to deal with cyber-attacks; most of them don't even have a single security professional on staff. In this session, Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation will discuss the technical and operational details of malware campaigns against activists, journalists, and lawyers around the world, including EFF employees and clients, as well as what the security community can do to protect these highly vulnerable populations.