Google’s Project Zero Finds a Nation-State Zero-Day Operation
Google’s Project Zero discovered, and caused to be patched, eleven zero-day exploits against Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Windows, and iOS. This seems to have been exploited by “Western government operatives actively conducting a counterterrorism operation”:
The exploits, which went back to early 2020 and used never-before-seen techniques, were “watering hole” attacks that used infected websites to deliver malware to visitors. They caught the attention of cybersecurity experts thanks to their scale, sophistication, and speed.
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It’s true that Project Zero does not formally attribute hacking to specific groups. But the Threat Analysis Group, which also worked on the project, does perform attribution. Google omitted many more details than just the name of the government behind the hacks, and through that information, the teams knew internally who the hacker and targets were. It is not clear whether Google gave advance notice to government officials that they would be publicizing and shutting down the method of attack.
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Clive Robinson • April 8, 2021 9:14 AM
@ ALL,
From my perspective Google was right to out the zero-days as quickly as possible.
As for if they were right or not to burn an operation, that is something entirely different to increasing the safety of hundreds of millions of users world wide.
But lets not be coy on this, Western Goverments are every bit as bad if not worse than what the claim of other Governments.
But lets be clear about one thing as I’ve repeatedly poibted out before the US Government quite deliberately lies to the US Public about cyber-security for highly politicaly motivated reasons. So much so that the average US Citizen has not a clue about just what the US Gov does in their name. This “dirty politics” often not known to elected representatives significantly endagers the lives of every person in the world who appears to be American or sympathetic to America.
So take care on how you decide what is right, what is wrong, and most importantly what is neutral but ensures or increases the safety of you, your families, their friends and other loved ones. Despite what certain US Government entities and individuals beleive is justified by the “Might is Right Doctrine” of thugs, despots and tryants, allied with the rather repellant faux excuse of “But we are the good guys”, invariably as many have found out in the last eight years good guys they are not.