Israeli Spyware Firm QuaDream Shut Down After Its Hacking Tools Exposed In Attacks

There have been accusations on QuaDream, the Israeli firm using hacking tools for spying on journalists, opposition figures, and advocacy organizations in at least 10 countries, shut down its complete operations.

As per the Calcalist’s sources, the company’s employees were notified of being laid off as it was about to cease its operations soon.

This comes soon after the Cyber unicorn Snyk’s layoff of 128 employees when they raised $200 million.

Citizen Lab and Microsoft Expose

It was reported that the firm was using hacking tools for illegal activities in almost 10 countries that, include North America and Europe according to reports from Citizen Lab and Microsoft.

For several months, the company had been in very bad shape, which ended after the report from Citizen Lab and Microsoft.

The company has only two employees to look after the computers and other equipment. In contrast, the board of directors is trying to dismantle the company by selling its intellectual property, reads the Calcalist report says. 

As reported by Citizen Lab, QuaDream’s surveillance software was used to spy on the iPhones of several civil society victims.

NSO Group, a lower-profile competitor to QuaDream, has been blacklisted in the US as there were abuse allegations.

Microsoft Associate General Counsel Amy Hogan-Burney said in her tweet, “Continuing to publicly out these actors is essential to stopping cyber mercenary activity.”

QuaDream’s Corporate registration form showed Israeli Lawyer Vibeke Dank.

Attempts to contact him for comments on this issue were unsuccessful, as he never responded.

For the past year, Reuters has been trying to reach QuaDream and even attempt a physical attempt on their office which was also a failure.

In 2022, Reuters reports gave a surge when they claimed that QuaDream had developed a “zero-click” hacking tool that is sold to cybercriminals, spies, and law enforcement as they can compromise any device remotely without any interaction from the device owner.

However, the targets of QuaDream were never identified, and it has been keeping a low profile as it doesn’t even have a website for its business and has asked its employees to keep the company off social media.

Why do Organizations need Unified endpoint management –