Title: Governments Spied on Opponents Using Software Developed by an Israeli Group

Experts confirmed on Thursday that several governments used a software program developed by an Israeli group to spy on politicians, opponents, journalists, academics, and human rights activists around the world, including in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Yemen, and Turkey. These powerful "cyber weapons" targeted over 100 individuals globally, according to messages from a security official at Microsoft and Citizen Lab, an organization based at the University of Toronto. Microsoft stated that it modified its Windows operating system to fix vulnerabilities exploited by the Israeli group. According to Citizen Lab, these spying tools were developed by a company based in Tel Aviv that operates secretly and sells software exclusively to governments capable of spying on smartphones, computers, and cloud services. The company's official name is currently "Saito Tech Limited," but it is commonly referred to as "Candiru." Researchers at Citizen Lab found evidence that this spyware was able to extract information from numerous applications used by the victims, including Gmail, Skype, Telegram, and Facebook. The program was also able to access web search histories, victims' passwords, and activate the camera and microphone on their devices. Microsoft identified victims of this program in the Palestinian territories, Israel, Lebanon, Yemen, Spain, the UK, Turkey, Armenia, and Singapore. The company noted that the program, referred to as "Devil's Tongue," was capable of infiltrating popular sites like Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and Yahoo to collect information, read victims' messages, and access photos. The program was also able to send messages on behalf of the targeted victims. Microsoft created protective measures to keep its products secure from intrusions executed by the program developed by the Israeli group, referred to as Surgom. The American company stated, "We have shared these protective measures with the security community so that we can collectively address and mitigate this threat."