The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

A CHINESE cybersecurity report has listed The Bahamas among countries allegedly used as part of a covert surveillance strategy by the United States and its intelligence-sharing allies.

The 91-page report, released yesterday by the China Cybersecurity Industry Alliance, details the workings of “IRRITANT HORN”, a surveillance programme previously exposed in 2015 through documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The programme, allegedly operated by the Five Eyes alliance — comprising the US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — involved hijacking mobile app downloads from platforms such as Google and Samsung to implant spyware into users’ devices. According to the report, the operation targeted app servers hosted in third-party countries, including The Bahamas.

The document does not suggest that Bahamian citizens were directly targeted or that the Bahamian government played any role in the operation. Instead, it names The Bahamas as one of several countries — alongside France, Switzerland, Cuba, and Russia — where internet infrastructure may have been exploited to facilitate surveillance activities abroad.

The report claims this tactic allowed Five Eyes agencies to conduct intrusive operations while avoiding domestic legal restrictions on spying on their citizens. The report says that non-Five Eyes countries like The Bahamas were targeted in part because they fall outside internal agreements prohibiting domestic surveillance within the alliance, making them more accessible for such operations.

It remains unclear whether any app servers physically located in The Bahamas were compromised or whether routing paths through Bahamian-based infrastructure were used. The report does not identify specific servers, companies, or dates connected to the country.

The report, which does not appear to have been subject to external peer review and does not have a detailed methodology section, is part of a broader effort by Chinese entities to spotlight US surveillance, though its reference to The Bahamas draws attention to the risks facing smaller nations that may unwittingly serve as digital staging grounds for global intelligence operations.

The report’s release comes just days after the United States unsealed multiple indictments against a group of Chinese nationals — including alleged government officers and employees of a private contractor — for a years-long global hacking campaign. US authorities accuse the group of targeting government agencies, journalists, religious organisations, and critics of the Chinese Communist Party, including a cyberattack on the US Department of the Treasury in late 2024. The indictments, sanctions, and infrastructure seizures were described by US officials as part of a broader effort to dismantle what they called a “hacker-for-hire” ecosystem operating at the direction of China’s Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of State Security.

In 2014, documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation in The Bahamas. This surveillance was conducted under a classified program called SOMALGET, a sub-program of MYSTIC, without the knowledge or consent of the Bahamian government.