An Israeli-Cypriot cyber company has developed a tool to de-anonymize Starlink users, and is expected to reveal it at the upcoming ISS World Europe conference, Intelligence Online reported on Monday.
The tool, Stargetz, is intended to function alongside another of the company's tools, a VPN de-anonymizing tool called VPNz.
The company, Targeteam, claimed that Stargetz does not intercept communication traffic or breach Starlink's encryption in order to identify the system's users. As such, Targeteam hopes to avoid legal and public disputes over its tool's usage.
Intelligence Online reported that Targeteam employs engineers with a background in the military and elite Israeli cyber companies such as Cognyte and UTX Technologies, but the details of the team are intentionally kept heavily under wraps, with employees requested not to possess active LinkedIn profiles.
US sends Starlink to Iran protesters
Starlink, a subsidiary of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is a satellite-internet network that can be accessed through small, portable Starlink terminals.
The United States smuggled thousands of Starlink terminals into Iran in January as the Iranian regime cut off internet service in the country as part of a brutal crackdown on anti-regime protests, according to a report published by the Wall Street Journal.
Goldie Katz contributed to this report.