3 months ago, I discovered a unique 0-click deanonymization attack that allows an attacker to grab the location of any target within a 250 mile radius. With a vulnerable app installed on a target’s phone (or as a background application on their laptop), an attacker can send a malicious payload and deanonymize you within seconds–and you wouldn’t even know.
I’m publishing this writeup and research as a warning, especially for journalists, activists, and hackers, about this type of undetectable attack. Hundreds of applications are vulnerable, including some of the most popular apps in the world: Signal, Discord, Twitter/X, and others. Here’s how it works:
Quite overblown, this tracks people to the nearest cloudflare region. Not really de-anonymising, especially as you have to already know their contact details.
And have access to install another app on their phone.
If you’re already getting another app on their phone, that app could lots more.
I think idea is that the app would already be there, for a journalist, having Signal is probably a given.