CivilSphere project

The CivilSphere project is dedicated to providing free services to people at risk to detect targeted cyber security threats. It was born in the Stratosphere laboratory of the FEE CTU in Prague in 2018. The researcher at CivilSphere believe that NGOs' work, as well the work of journalists and human rights defenders, is a critical asset for our society, protecting human rights and civil liberties. It is their critical work that makes them a highly valuable political target for a wide variety of powerful actors. The end result is a continuous flow of attacks and technical abuse. Usually struggling for financial support for their causes, how can they protect themselves? At the CTU University, we took a step forward to help them.

MISSION

CivilSphere's mission is to provide journalists, activists, and human rights defendants services and tools to early identify digital threats jeopardizing their life and work.

SERVICES

The team at CivilSphere provides three key services to help people at risk identify if they are being attacked, or if they are infected by malware:

  1. EMERGENCY VPN: This service provides a free security assessment of a mobile device, identifying all possible security issues in the mobile phone. Read more.
  2. CHECK EMAIL SERVICE: This service gives expert feedback on a given suspicious email, malicious attachments, or links. Read more.
  3. CLOUD-BASED MALWARE DETECTION: Continuous machine-learning based traffic monitoring for NGOs to detect possible malware infections in their networks. Read more.

ACHIEVEMENTS

  • More than 50 security assessments of mobile devices using the EmergencyVPN.
  • Continuous monitoring of more than 5000 hosts of several NGOs in different countries.
  • More than 10 security reports to developers of mobile applications due to insecure technologies in development.
  • Continuous publications in conferences, scientific papers, and blogs.