Bahraini Regime Spies on Citizens Online

Local Editor

The Canadian research center Citizen Lab revealed that a number of countries, including Bahrain, spy on their citizens online through the software FinFisher of the Gamma Group.

The report, published by the French Slate daily mentioned that FinFisher spies on people by accessing their personal computers through twisted methods, adding, "The technology is supposed to be sold only to governments and law enforcement agencies for targeting serious criminals such as suspected terrorists. But a growing trove of evidence uncovered by researchers has linked it to attacks on political opponents or activists in a host of countries with poor human rights records, including Ethiopia and Bahrain."

According to the report, countries that cooperate with FinFisher reached 36, including the US, Canada, Australia, India, China, Japan, Austria, the UK, Holland, Romania, and Serbia, as well as Islamic countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malysia.

FinFisher, sometimes also called FinSpy, is a spy Trojan designed to covertly infiltrate targeted computers, monitor communications, and gather data from a hard drive. It can secretly record audio from a microphone, monitor emails and Skype conversations, and even take over a user's webcam to conduct "live surveillance," according to marketing materials.

Source: al-Ahed News, translated by website team