Join Amazon Prime for exclusive deals, fast shipping, and endless entertainment! Sign up now!
Sneaky secret agents connected to the Vietnamese government “apparently targeted several U.S. lawmakers and journalists with spyware.” The payload they tried to deliver was the sophisticated state-level “Predator” software but the attack itself was stone-age primitive. They posted infected comments on “the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.” While Elon Musk gets a chuckle every time he hears that phrase, unlike Prince, Musk at least chose a character which can be printed and pronounced for the new name of his privately owned company. “X.”
Spyware in the comments
The Hill is quietly reporting, on Monday, October 9, while they hope you’ll be distracted by the other headlines, that “Vietnamese government agents apparently targeted several U.S. lawmakers and journalists with spyware using public posts on X.”
Amnesty International carried out the investigation, along with “a consortium of media outlets.”
The attack was bipartisan with at least two Republicans and two Democrats hit. Lawmaker Michael McCaul hails from Texas and he’s a Republican.
Vietnam Tried To Plant Spyware On Phones Of US Reps https://t.co/KwtImfCHsG pic.twitter.com/YVpwfgDe9n
— JoeMyGod (@JoeMyGod) October 9, 2023
Democrat Senators Gary Peters from Michigan and Connecticut’s Chris Murphy were exposed to the spyware, along with their Republican Senate colleague John Hoeven of North Dakota.
The infected comments were posted “earlier this year” on messages they were “tagged” on. Each and every one “featured malicious links to install Predator, a spyware similar to Pegasus.”
They went on to detail how Congressman McCaul “who serves as the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was allegedly targeted in a reply to a tweet from Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
Taiwan a touchy subject
It seems that Taiwan is a touchy subject for the Vietnamese. Touchy enough to send a spyware loaded response. “Hoeven was allegedly targeted in a reply to a post from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen about the senator’s visit.”
Meanwhile, “Peters, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, were both tagged in a reply to a tweet from an Albanian politician about their visit to the Balkan nation.” The Asians must be interested in Putin’s war as well.
High powered government officials weren’t the only ones targeted. Chief national security analyst for CNN, Jim Sciutto, “and two other reporters based in Taiwan were also targeted with malicious links to install the Predator spyware.”
Vietnam agents tried to plant spyware on phones of US lawmakers and journalists: probe https://t.co/g3KbLwcogH pic.twitter.com/qIalEanomZ
— The Hill (@thehill) October 9, 2023
The investigation soon determined that “most of the posts on X came from the account @Joseph_Gordon16.” That account vanished into thin air long ago. For cover, the account “often included links that mimicked news sites.”
When Washington Post heard about the infestation, they reached out to the targeted individuals. Nobody they talked to was willing to admit that “their devices had been infected.”
According to Amnesty International, their findings “suggest that agents of the Vietnamese authorities, or persons acting on their behalf, may be behind the spyware campaign.“
