I'm Shocked - Shocked I Tell You! - To Learn that Spies Spy

Yeah, OK... Not shocked. Not even a little. Russia blames US and Apple for hacking diplomat iPhones

I will say up front that this doesn't sound like Apple; they don't usually help people outside of China. It does sound like various spy organizations, however. I mean, aren't they SUPPOSED to spy on our enemies?

Russia has accused Apple and US intelligence agencies of collaborating to spy on its diplomats by hacking their iPhones.

And really, Apple wouldn't have to be involved, outside of their creating non-secure software. (And no matter what the fanbois say, it is NOT secure.)

Back when COVID was just getting rolling, and the lockdowns were starting, hackers had a lot of time on their hands, and came up with a boatload of Apple iOS hacks. Zerodium - the people who pay big bucks for this kind of thing - announced shortly into the lockdown that they were no longer paying for zero-click iPhone hacks. They had too many at the time. I haven't looked to see if they have started collecting those hacks again, but I would guess that they have, since a fair few of them have been patched by Apple. (See iOS security is f**ked from 2020.)

My point is, the NSA/CIA/EIEIO would not have to get Apple involved; they would only need to buy access from Zerodium (if you assume that the NSA is NOT Zerodium), or someone else. And it isn't like the NSA doesn't have their own staff of hackers. Or so I assume.

A spokesperson for Kaspersky told The Record that “due to the absence of technical details reported," the security company couldn't confirm all the findings from the FSB.

The FSB is basically Russia's version of the FBI. And yes I know they used to be the KGB; I stand by that characterization of the FBI. The FSB is who is actually making all of the accusations.

Anyway, the Russians are pissed that they were being spied on. (Does this mean we knew about the Ukraine invasion in advance?) Here's a tiny violin to express my feelings of sympathy. Or not, as the case may be.

The hat tip for all of this goes to Shannon Morse at ThreatWire and the video Amazon FINED For Privacy Violations - ThreatWire. I have it queued up the section on the Russian hack.The story about Amazon is the last story in Tuesday's episode of ThreatWire, so if you're interested in the small fines being levied against Amazon. ($55 million in fines? That's a joke. Meta/F*c*book was fined €1.2 billion in May for mishandling data.)