Ex-US intelligence operatives admit to hacking for UAE
The Justice Department said Tuesday three former intelligence and military operatives had admitted to helping the UAE government surveil targets worldwide, including US citizens.
Three former US intelligence and military operatives have admitted to delivering hacking technology to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which was used to surveil targets in the United States and around the world, the Justice Department said Tuesday.
After leaving US government employment, Marc Baier, Ryan Adams and Daniel Gericke went to work for a US-based company operating in the Persian Gulf country, according to court papers filed Tuesday. After being offered “significant increases in their salaries,” they left to join a UAE-based cyber company as senior managers where they “knowingly and willfully” helped support the UAE government’s hacking operations from 2016 to 2019, prosecutors said.
Their former employers are not identified by name in the court documents. But Lori Stroud, a former National Security Agency employee, told The Associated Press she worked with the defendants in the UAE at US-based Cyberpoint and then for the UAE-owned DarkMatter.
According to Reuters, their clandestine unit at DarkMatter was named Project Raven. Ex-US intelligence operatives working for the hacking team reportedly used NSA surveillance techniques to spy on targets including human rights defenders, journalists and even US citizens.
