Firefox Brand Used To Cover Spyware

By | May 6, 2013


Firefox Brand Used To Cover SpywareMozilla isn’t too happy about it.

According to a report by Citizen Lab, Gamma International, a UK based firm that produces surveillance software (FinFisher), is tricking people into installing their spyware on their machines, which is later masked as Firefox.exe.

As noted in the Mozilla’s blog post, “when a user examines the installed spyware on his/her machine by viewing its properties, Gamma misrepresents its program as “Firefox.exe” and includes the properties associated with Firefox along with a version number and copyright and trademark claims attributed to “Firefox and Mozilla Developers.”

As a result, Mozilla has sent a cease and desist letter, demanding Gamma to stop these illegal practices immediately.

ArsTechnica also reports that the countries where Citizen Lab identified FinFisher command and control servers are all over the world, including Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Ethiopia, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Qatar, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.

But it’s okay, just ask CISPA supporters.

[Thanks, Shane]


About (Author Profile)


Vygantas is a former web designer whose projects are used by companies such as AMD, NVIDIA and departed Westood Studios. Being passionate about software, Vygantas began his journalism career back in 2007 when he founded FavBrowser.com. Having said that, he is also an adrenaline junkie who enjoys good books, fitness activities and Forex trading.

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  1. hehe says:

    they can’t use chrome.exe, it is already spyware.