ICE's $2M Spyware Contract Can Hack Phones Without a Click
ICE Has a $2M Contract for Spyware That Can Hack Phones Without a Click
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holds a $2 million contract with Paragon Solutions, maker of Graphite, a zero-click spyware that can compromise phones without user interaction. The article details how Graphite exploits vulnerabilities in messaging apps like WhatsApp and iMessage, bypassing encryption to read messages. It highlights documented cases of journalists and activists targeted in Italy, raising concerns about government surveillance and the limits of manufacturer promises. The contract, initially halted by a stop-work order, was allowed to proceed in August 2025, with unclear safeguards on its use.
Once governments acquire that capability, promises from the manufacturer offer little protection.
- exceptione
> Graphite belongs to the same category of commercial surveillance technology as Pegasus, the better-known spyware developed by NSO Group. Both are classified as mercenary spyware, meaning private companies develop and sell them to government intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
This buries the lede a bit. These companies play their part in trans-national organized crime networks, spanning countries like the USA, Russia and Israel. In Russia, it is often hard to delineate between organized crime and the FSB, because these networks overlap and they are often well established within the structures of the state. The same increasingly applies to the USA.
ICE is becoming a paramilitary force, "immigration control" is clearly not its only purpose. I cannot unsee this from the massive purges in the military, rooting out the most competent leadership. The parallels with Russia can't be ignored.
- miohtama
Meanwhile in Serbia
https://citizenlab.ca/research/pegasus-spyware-infection-of-...
"In collaboration with the SHARE Foundation, the Citizen Lab analyzed forensic artefacts from the iPhone of a member of Serbia’s student protest movement after they received an Apple Threat Notification warning of targeting with mercenary spyware."
Zero clicks are cheap if NSO can afford to go after students.
- edoceo
Seems a low price for no-click zero-day infections
- teravor
> Researchers have confirmed Graphite attacks through WhatsApp and iMessage, although the complete method remains secret.
unsurprising that it's closed source software which is vulnerable like this. LLMs can now decompile binaries very efficiently so it's not even security by obscurity anymore.
you really have to screw up to not carefully trace the path of incoming messages to ensure they are processed safely.
- josefritzishere
So NSA Wiretapping is illegal but ICE is ok? This administration is so wantonly criminal.