FinFisher, also known as FinSpy, is surveillance software marketed by Lench IT solutions PLC, which markets the spyware through law enforcement channels.
Contents
- Elements of the FinFisher suite
- Method of infection
- Use by repressive regimes
- Reporters Without Borders
- Firefox masquerading
- Detection
- References
FinFisher can be covertly installed on targets' computers by exploiting security lapses in the update procedures of non-suspect software. The company has been criticized by human rights organizations for selling these capabilities to repressive or non-democratic states known for monitoring and imprisoning political dissidents. Egyptian dissidents who ransacked the offices of Egypt's secret police following the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak reported they discovered a contract with Gamma International for €287,000 for a license to run the FinFisher software. In 2014, an American citizen sued the Ethiopian government for the surreptitious installing of FinSpy onto his computer in America, which was used to wiretap his private Skype calls and monitoring his entire family’s every use of the computer for a period of months.
Lench IT solutions PLC has a UK-based branch Gamma International Ltd in Andover, England, and a Germany-based branch Gamma International GmbH in Munich, Gamma International is a subsidiary of the Gamma Group, specializing in surveillance and monitoring, including equipment, software, and training services, reportedly owned by William Louthean Nelson through a shell corporation in the British Virgin Islands.
On August 6, 2014, FinFisher source code, pricing, support history, and other related data were retrieved from the Gamma International internal network and made available on the Internet.
Elements of the FinFisher suite
In addition to spyware the FinFisher suite offered by Gamma to the intelligence community includes monitoring of ongoing developments and updating of solutions and techniques which complement those developed by intelligence agencies. The software suite, which the company calls "Remote Monitoring and Deployment Solutions" has the ability to take control of target computers and capture even encrypted data and communications. Using "enhanced remote deployment methods" it can install software on target computers. An "IT Intrusion Training Program" is offered which includes training in methods and techniques and in use of the company supplied software.
The suite is marketed in Arabic, English, German, French, Portuguese, and Russian and offered worldwide at trade shows which offer intelligence support system, ISS, training and products to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Method of infection
FinFisher malware is installed in various ways, including fake software updates, emails with fake attachments, and security flaws in popular software. Sometimes the surveillance suite is installed after the target accepts installation of a fake update to commonly used software. Code which will install the malware has also been detected in emails. The software, which is designed to evade detection by antivirus software, has versions which work on mobile phones of all major brands.
A security flaw in Apple's iTunes allowed unauthorized third parties to use iTunes online update procedures to install unauthorized programs. Gamma International offered presentations to government security officials at security software trade shows where they described how to covertly install the FinFisher spy software on suspects' computers using iTunes' update procedures.
The security flaw in iTunes that FinFisher is reported to have exploited was first described in 2008 by security software commentator Brian Krebs. Apple did not patch the security flaw for more than three years, until November 2011. Apple officials have not offered an explanation as to why the flaw took so long to patch. Promotional videos used by the firm at trade shows which illustrate how to infect a computer with the surveillance suite were released by Wikileaks in December, 2011.
In 2014, the Ethiopian government was found to have installed FinSpy on the computer of an American citizen via a fake email attachment that appeared to be a Microsoft Word document.
FinFisher has also been found to engage in politically motivated targeting. In Ethiopia, for instance, photos of a political opposition group are used to "bait" and infect users.
Technical analysis of the malware, methods of infection and its persistence techniques has been published in Code And Security blog in four parts.
Use by repressive regimes
Reporters Without Borders
On 12 March 2013 Reporters Without Borders named Gamma International as one of five "Corporate Enemies of the Internet" and “digital era mercenaries” for selling products that have been or are being used by governments to violate human rights and freedom of information. FinFisher technology was used in Bahrain and Reporters Without Borders, together with Privacy International, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, and Bahrain Watch filed an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) complaint, asking the National Contact Point in the United Kingdom to further investigate Gamma’s possible involvement in Bahrain. Since then research has shown that FinFisher technology was used in Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Britain, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Qatar, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Venezuela and Vietnam.
Firefox masquerading
FinFisher is capable of masquerading as other more legitimate programs, such as Mozilla Firefox. On April 30, 2013, Mozilla announced that they had sent Gamma a cease-and-desist letter for trademark infringement. Gamma had created an espionage program that was entitled firefox.exe and even provided a version number and trademark claims to appear to be legitimate Firefox software.
Detection
In an article of PC Magazine, Bill Marczak (member of Bahrain Watch and computer science PhD student at University of California, Berkeley doing research into FinFisher) said of FinSpy Mobile (Gamma's mobile spyware): "As we saw with respect to the desktop version of FinFisher, antivirus alone isn't enough, as it bypassed antivirus scans". The article's author Sara Yin, an analyst at PC Magazine, predicted that antivirus providers are likely to have updated their signatures to detect FinSpy Mobile.
According to announcements from ESET, FinFisher and FinSpy are detected by ESET antivirus software as "Win32/Belesak.D" trojan.
Other security vendors claim that their products will block any spyware they know about and can detect (regardless of who may have launched it), and Eugene Kaspersky, head of IT security company Kaspersky Lab, stated, "We detect all malware regardless its purpose and origin". Two years after that statement by Eugene Kaspersky in 2012 a description of the technique used by FinFisher to evade Kaspersky protection was published in Part 2 of the relevant blog at Code And Security.