Denis Opudo
The Oromia Media Network (OMN) in the US is one of those technology companies that are suffering from the Ethiopian malware attacks. This is according to reports released by Citizen Lab on 6th December 2017. The Ethiopians released PSS to aim at ISP addresses in 20 countries with Eritrea’s government included. This was courtesy of a study done by Citizen Lab by the use of spyware called PC Surveillance System (PSS) or PC 360 a product sold to them by an Israel cybersecurity firm to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The report showed how Ethiopian discordant in the UK, US, and various countries were targeted with emails containing sophisticated commercial spyware arranging like Adobe Flash updates and PDF plugins. Targets include a US-based Ethiopian diaspora media outlet, the Oromia Media Network (OMN), a Ph.D. student, and a lawyer. It’s believed that during the investigations one of the authors was also a target.
The investigations lasted for a year to come up with the findings. In other countries like Egypt, Ethiopia itself, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda were also found to have the infected device. The OMN was the recent company to target on November 22nd, 2017. The OMN executive director was charged with terrorism-related activity in Ethiopia in early 2017.
The case heard at the US court was aimed at giving a verdict on whether Ethiopia was responsible for unlawful spying that began as early as 2012 which was based on state-sponsored malware to infect the home computer of an Ethiopian American. In 2014 the Citizen Lab also found out that Ethiopian intelligence was targeting Ethiopian Satellite Television Service (ESAT), which is another US-based media outlet.
