Budapest has faced EU scrutiny over the use of spyware against the opposition and civil society in past years.
Members of the European Parliament were offered special pouches to protect digital devices from espionage and tampering for a visit to Hungary this week, a sign of rising spying fears within Europe.
Five lawmakers from the Parliament’s civil liberties committee traveled to Hungary on Monday for a three-day visit to inspect the EU member country’s progress on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights.
One lawmaker on the trip confirmed to POLITICO that the Parliament officials joining the delegation were offered Faraday bags — special metal-lined pouches that block electromagnetic signals — by the Parliament’s services and were also advised to be cautious about using public Wi-Fi networks or charging facilities.
I wonder if those protect from the Israeli spyware Hungary has been buying.
Faraday cages don’t protect against specific malware. They block electromagnetic radiation or communication in general. The idea is to keep your phone inside as long as you are in a potentionally compromised net.
They should have basic flip phones for travel. Sadly most of us should now, especially protesters. Faraday pouches are easily opened and by law enforcement.
Most of the Israeli spyware infects using zero days in messaging apps such as WhatsApp or the default SMS apps. So when you take the phone out of the bag you’ll still receive your missed messages, which would contain the exploit.
Fake phone towers are used to catch calls and textmessages in real time so it doesn’t protect against that either.
These bags only protect against exploits in the call/sms/wifi/bluetooth protocols as long as they are in the bag. Which you can also just protect yourself against using hardware toggles, and in some cases even software toggles.