News · The Citizen Lab
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The Citizen Lab
Politicians in U.S. and E.U. Say Targeted Ads Are a Security Risk
Politicians in Europe and the U.S. are speaking out against the use of advertising technology to infect targets with zero-click spyware. Following recent findings from the Citizen Lab, members of the European Parliament signed a letter urging the E.U. to investigate the potential exposure of its institutions to zero-click spyware through online targeted advertising. In the U.S., Democratic Sens. Booker and Wyden say that the findings underscore the need for better security practices in the industry. Read the article in CyberScoop The post Politicians in U.S. and E.U. Say Targeted Ads Are a Se…
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The Citizen Lab
Serbian Prosecutor Who Investigated Belgrade Trump Tower Project ‘Targeted with Spyware’
The Guardian has reported on new findings by the Citizen Lab and SHARE Foundation that a Serbian professor and prominent supporter of the country’s student movement was targeted with Pegasus spyware. The investigation also found that a Serbian prosecutor who investigated a scheme to help the Trumps build a tower in Belgrade was also targeted. These discoveries follow the Citizen Lab’s earlier confirmation that a Serbian pro-democracy student activist’s device was infected with Pegasus spyware. At least 15 cases of Pegasus targeting have been identified ahead of Serbia’s October 25 national el…
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The Citizen Lab
Built-In Weakness: Lawful Access and Encryption in the Age of AI-Powered Cyber Threats
Senior research associate Kate Robertson spoke about the legal concerns that Canada’s proposed Lawful Access Act poses in a discussion hosted by the Canadian Internet Society. She emphasized the importance of repairing and preventing vulnerabilities “rather than drilling more holes in our every day communications systems.” The post Built-In Weakness: Lawful Access and Encryption in the Age of AI-Powered Cyber Threats appeared first on The Citizen Lab.
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The Citizen Lab
How Generative AI is Scaling Transnational Repression
Kate Pundyk, Siena Anstis, and Marcus Michaelsen write about the rise of AI-enabled digital transnational repression in their piece for Just Security. The use of AI models to identify, monitor, and target diaspora activists and exiled dissidents around the world demonstrates how the misuse of technology produced by companies like Anthropic can have an adverse impact on human rights. Read the article The post How Generative AI is Scaling Transnational Repression appeared first on The Citizen Lab.
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The Citizen Lab
Citizen Lab Director Slams Trump Administration, ‘Techno-Fascist’ Executives
Director Ron Deibert spoke to a crowd in his keynote address at SecTor 2026, warning that the threats that the Citizen Lab investigates are being “super-charged” thanks to AI. In particular, he criticized the United States’ “descent into authoritarianism” and use of AI to spread propaganda. Read Dark Reading’s coverage of the talk here The post Citizen Lab Director Slams Trump Administration, ‘Techno-Fascist’ Executives appeared first on The Citizen Lab.
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The Citizen Lab
The Lawful Access Act’s threats to Canada’s national security
“The assumption by government officials that technology companies can find “safe ways” to weaken critical cybersecurity protections badly misreads the current threat landscape,” argues the Citizen Lab’s Kate Robertson in a new piece for The Globe & Mail. She warns that, if passed, the controversial Bill C-22 (“Lawful Access Act”) would empower the government to require surveillance capabilities be built into any communications technology in Canada. Everything from smartphones, smartwatches, banking apps, health apps, video game platforms, and public WiFi or CCTV networks could be accessed by…
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The Citizen Lab
The Secrets of a US Spyware King
Paragon Solutions vowed not to sell its mobile spyware to governments with poor human rights records and to cut off customers who misuse its products. However, in 2025 researchers at the Citizen Lab confirmed that the spyware had been used to target Italian activists and journalists. In an exclusive interview with WIRED, Paragon’s CEO Andrew Boyd revealed the limits of the company’s promise: that it has no way to know if customers misuse its software, and it doesn’t have a “kill switch” to disable customers when there is misuse. Speaking with WIRED, Citizen Lab’s senior researcher John Scott-…
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The Citizen Lab
Toronto-Based VPN Provider Plans to Quit Canada Over Lawful-Access Bill
Psiphon, a software company spun out of the Citizen Lab that helps internet users living under oppressive regimes evade online censorship, plans to leave Canada if the federal government’s lawful-access bill passes in its current form, reports The Globe and Mail. If passed, Bill C-22 would require electronic service providers to make secret changes to their systems to provide police services and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) with surveillance and monitoring capabilities. Psiphon was originally created as a Citizen Lab project in 2006, and became a private company soon afte…
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The Citizen Lab
Fixer, Financier, Spymaster: How the UAE’s Sheikh Tahnoon is Setting His Sights on AI Dominance
Citizen Lab director Ron Deibert is quoted in an article in the Guardian about Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s increasing influence on AI dominance. “For the last 20 years, democracy has been in decline,” says Deibert. “That happens to coincide with an enormous expansion of digital surveillance capabilities for both commercial and national security purposes. The epicentre of a lot of this is the UAE. And where do all roads lead in the UAE? They lead to Sheikh Tahnoon.” The article states that Sheikh Tahnoon is embedding himself in the infrastructure that “will underpin our digital future…
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The Citizen Lab
UN Reports Citing Citizen Lab Submissions Published
Two UN reports that the Citizen Lab submitted recommendations to have been published this month. One report, from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, assesses risks to human rights defenders arising from the use of digital technologies and highlights initiatives to improve their protection. It cites Citizen Lab reports and summarizes a Citizen Lab submission. The second report, from the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries, draws on Citizen Lab research to assess the human rights impacts of cybermercenaries and underscores the absence of clear regulation in cyberspace. UN High Co…
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The Citizen Lab
Submission to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
The Citizen Lab recently submitted a response to the Research Directorate at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada on the issue of the monitoring of Chinese citizens and diaspora members in Canada by Chinese authorities and their proxies. The submission provides an overview of the connection between state surveillance and repression in China and the Chinese government’s monitoring activity abroad. Read the submission here The post Submission to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada appeared first on The Citizen Lab.
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The Citizen Lab
Group of Bipartisan Lawmakers Ask US Government to Ban Several Hack-for-Hire Firms
In 2020, the Citizen Lab uncovered a massive hack-for-hire operation called Dark Basin. The group targeted American nonprofits, including organizations working on #ExxonKnew and organizations working on net neutrality advocacy. We linked the operation to an Indian company called BellTroX InfoTech Services, and related entities. On September 9, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, urging him to add three Indian companies, including BellTroX, to the economic sanctions list. The lawmakers have accused the firms of “conducting targeted e…
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The Citizen Lab
U.K. Supreme Court Opens Door for Spyware Victims to Sue Foreign States
Last month, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom issued a highly anticipated decision in The Kingdom of Bahrain v. Shehabi and another (Shehabi). The claimants, two Bahraini dissidents living in the U.K., allegedly suffered psychological harm after Bahrain used FinSpy spyware to hack into their devices. In an important step towards accountability, the court ruled that Bahrain was not immune from litigation arising from the use of the spyware. Citizen Lab researchers Siena Anstis, Natalia Krapiva, and Kate Pundyk write in Lawfare that this decision is significant for transnational repressio…
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The Citizen Lab
‘Unprecedented’ Number of Apple Users Received Recent Spyware Alert
Apple customers in 110 countries received threat notifications recently alerting them to suspected spyware attacks targeting their devices, TechCrunch reports. Senior researcher John Scott-Railton says that the “scale and geographic diversity of public posts about receiving notifications are pretty unprecedented.” “For every public notification like this, you can imagine there’s a huge notification iceberg that the public will never learn about. This is a clear indication that something bigger is going on.” Apple debuted its spyware alerts in 2021, which Scott-Railton notes has been a “big im…
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The Citizen Lab
Inside the Fake Copyright Racket Silencing News Outlets
Journalists and civil society are increasingly being silenced by accusations of copyright infringement, says senior researcher Alberto Fittarelli in a report by the OCCRP. Unlike bot comments, falsely reporting videos for copyright infringement is “virtually invisible,” and leaves the burden of proof on victims to challenge accusations. These attacks represent a “global threat to civil society,” says Fittarelli. “With review systems geared towards accepting a claim based on superficial evidence, it is almost trivial for bad actors to set up and backdate websites so as to claim ownership of a…
