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Amnesty International: Hackers attacking Vietnam dissidents
February 24, 2021 GMT
BANGKOK (AP) Amnesty International says it has found that a hacking group known as Ocean Lotus has been staging more spyware attacks on Vietnamese human rights activists in the latest blow to freedom of speech in the communist-ruled country.
The human rights group said Wednesday that Amnesty Tech’s Security Lab found evidence of the hacking attempts in phishing emails sent to two dissidents, one in the Philippines and one in Germany.
Cybersecurity firms earlier identified hacking attempts by Ocean Lotus targeting dissidents, governments and companies across Southeast Asia. The hackers are suspected of having ties to Vietnam’s government, which has been cracking down on dissent.
AMNESTY International says it has found that a hacking group known as Ocean Lotus has been staging more spyware attacks on Vietnamese human rights activists, in the latest blow to freedom of speech in the communist-ruled country.
The human rights group said on Wednesday that Amnesty Tech’s Security Lab found evidence of the hacking attempts in phishing emails sent to two dissidents, one in the Philippines and one in Germany.
Cybersecurity firms earlier identified hacking attempts by Ocean Lotus targeting dissidents, governments and companies across South-East Asia.
The hackers are suspected of having ties to Vietnam’s government, which has been cracking down on dissent. Amnesty urged the government to investigate.
Vietnam joins the ranks of governments using spyware to crack down on human-rights defenders.
Human-rights activists are being targeted by cyberattacks as part of a wider effort by the Vietnamese state to censor anyone speaking out against the government, Amnesty International’s Security Lab alleges.
Ocean Lotus, a well-known threat actor dating back to 2013, is behind the spyware campaign against human-rights defenders and has long been identified as having goals “aligned with the Vietnamese state interests,” according to Amnesty International’s report on the situation.
Spyware is just the latest tool turned against dissenting bloggers and activists by the Vietnamese government, an arsenal which also includes harassment, assault, travel bans and jail, the report explained.
Vietnamese online journalists face censorship at home
Attacks highlight repression faced by activists
Amnesty said the activists and the NGO were sent emails pretending to share an important document with a link to download a file. These files included spyware for Mac OS, Android and Windows operating systems thereby covering the vast majority of mobile devices and computer operating systems.
Amnesty said its analysis of the malicious emails showed Ocean Lotus was responsible for sending them. These latest attacks by Ocean Lotus highlight the repression Vietnamese activists at home and abroad face for standing up for human rights, Likhita Banerji, researcher at Amnesty Tech, said in a statement on the NGO s website. This unlawful surveillance violates the right to privacy and stifles freedom of expression, she added.