Paragon accidentally uploaded a photo of its spyware control panel
98 points - today at 7:42 PM
SourceFrom one Twitter user:
> It's just a demo instance, but, these front ends are barely revealed to the public
This genuinely doesn't look any different from the control panels of commercial infostealers and RATs sold on Russian hacking forums. Those usually sell for between $200 and $20,000 depending on features and pricing model (one-time vs. ongoing subscription).
These spyware companies hype themselves up, but they're really not any different from Ivan's RAT-as-a-Service, besides having extra exploits to burn and wealthier customers.
walletdrainer
today at 9:39 PM
As it turns out, you just can’t make malware for targets like these much better.
recursivecaveat
today at 8:24 PM
This company btw for anyone else who had not heard of them before (there are a lot of companies by that name): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragon_Solutions
phendrenad2
today at 8:55 PM
It's too bad that "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" has become "we can download a full copy of all of your files at any time, or continually, if we feel like it, even if we don't suspect you of a crime".
rtaylorgarlock
today at 8:48 PM
Looks like image was removed and maybe only a demo?
Can somebody please explain to an idiot (me) how is this possible for this to keep going? I thought that the world has decided that spyware is illegal and can't be produced. Is this company related to israeli government? If not, why is it allowed to function?
The world has not decided that spyware can't be produced. Mostly, the powers that be treat it like weapons of war.
That is, companies can make and sell it as long as they only sell it to governments and only the ones that we like.
general1465
today at 10:33 PM
What is allowed to companies is not allowed to private citizens. If you want to systematically break copyright laws or steal data from people, do it as Joe's LLC. Joe would go to prison for copyright infringement or hacking other people, Joe's LLC can do as it please.
moralestapia
today at 8:47 PM
Awesome.
Moxie's "unbreakable" end-to-end communication protocol.
The message can't be intercepted in transit, since we are talking about spyware, I assume they get it from the device, hard to defend against that if they have access to your process' memory space.
Certainly very hard to defend against that when the messenger you're using won't let you use a device you control.
Surprising that end-to-end encryption doesn't really matter when you get into one of the ends.
ASalazarMX
today at 9:10 PM
Even if you had to input your private key every time you wanted to read or send a message, having malware in your phone voids practically any form of encryption, because it has to be decrypted eventually to be used.
akimbostrawman
today at 9:04 PM
not at all. there is no encryption that can save you when one of the legitimate participants is somehow compromised. doesn't even need to be a sophisticated device compromise, literal shoulder surfing does that too.
moralestapia
today at 9:05 PM
[flagged]
The parent said "it's surprising". It's not surprising.
You're correct in the literal sense that they did say those words, but the entire comment clearly demonstrated a lack of surprise that reveals the opening words to be intended ironically.
moralestapia
today at 9:00 PM
>The message can't be intercepted in transit
Lol, so like ... all encryption schemes since the 70s?
They do have stronger schemes, which are called hash functions.
moralestapia
today at 9:11 PM
What?
Hashing is not encrypting.
You can learn more about the topic here, https://www.okta.com/identity-101/hashing-vs-encryption/
It's a joke, because hashing losses information, and thus the original is not retrievable, woosh
Hashing is a part of encryption, maybe you are the one who needs to shore up on the topic?
aipatselarom
today at 9:30 PM
Nice try. However, hashing and encryption are two different operations.
Load this page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard
Ctrl-F "hash". No mention of it.
Before being pedantic at least check out the url in that comment to get the basics going.
This entire thread should be annihilated, but since you mentioned being pedantic...
You're correct that a pure encryption algorithm doesn't use hashing. But real-world encryption systems will include an HMAC to detect whether messages were altered in transit. HMACs do use hash functions.
AlotOfReading
today at 10:02 PM
A good hash function is surjective. Encryption is bijective. They're very different things.
> What?
> Hashing is not encrypting.
> You can learn more about the topic here, https://www.okta.com/identity-101/hashing-vs-encryption/
Thank you for that link. Your original comment implied that Signal's threat model should have included an attacker-controlled end. The only way to do that is to make decryption impossible by anyone, including the intended recipient. A labyrinthine way to do that would be to substitute the symmetric-encryption algorithm with a hash algorithm, which of course destroys the plaintext, but does accomplish the goal of obfuscating it in transit, at rest, and forever.
How is this related?
moralestapia
today at 9:02 PM
I see there's some room for ambiguity.
See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxie_Marlinspike
Cool, can you now show how the protocol has been broken? Lot of smart people would love to see your novel research.
Apologies for being dense. Could you spell out how you went from Paragon Solutions to the Signal Protocol?
I guess they've seen a Signal icon in the photo. Of course the interception is done locally on the phone (so it's basically "man-in-the-client" rather than a "man-in-the-middle"), therefore the Signal protocol is not really worth being mentioned as it has nothing to do with local interception.
Insanity
today at 10:21 PM
Yea I knew which Moxie it was but that didn’t help at all haha
I read Pentagon instead of Paragon.