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Threat actor

Snaptrends

Last fetched

Snaptrends is a threat actor tracked in WhisperGraph's MITRE ATT&CK corpus, observed using 0 techniques.

Description

Snaptrends was a social media monitoring and surveillance platform that developed ways to analyze geotagged social media posts and conversations in real time. The platform was marketed to law enforcement agencies, schools, and other organizations, enabling users to track keywords, hashtags, and geographic areas of interest. Law enforcement agencies across the United States utilized Snaptrends to track targets and monitor public events. For example, the software was reportedly used to increase arrest rates during specific operations. Snaptrends was also used to monitor students' social media activity, often in collaboration with schools. The company promoted social media analytics tools to authorities in Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Malaysia, Turkey, and other countries known to suppress online speech, according to confidential company documents and interviews with current and former employees. Beginning in 2013, Snaptrends pursued business in Saudi Arabia, entering a $500,000 agreement with a company linked to the royal family to sell its technology. The company also engaged with the Saudi Ministry of Interior and intelligence agencies. It has also done business with the United Arab Emirates. In 2014, Brandon Burris, Snaptrends co-founder and chief technology officer at the time, flew to Hong Kong as part of a $300,000 deal with a local holding company Faith Concord. According to corporate filings in China, Faith Concord owns BaoLiDa, which markets its ability to monitor citizens’ activities on the internet to the Chinese government. Snaptrends faced criticism for targeting activists or disproportionately affecting marginalized communities. These concerns led platforms like Twitter to sever ties with Snaptrends, cutting off access to their data in 2016. Snaptrends ceased operations later that year, laying off its staff and shutting down quietly.

Techniques by tactic

No ATT&CK techniques are recorded for Snaptrends in WhisperGraph.

Attributed infrastructure

None published. WhisperGraph carries no ATTRIBUTED_TO edge to Snaptrends today — this states the absence of a published link, not that Snaptrends has no infrastructure.

References

© The MITRE Corporation. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of The MITRE Corporation.

Related pages

Pivot from Snaptrends into its techniques, tactics and any attributed infrastructure.

Queries

Resolves the slug to this actor, merging every duplicate node sharing the same name.


MATCH (a:ACTOR)
WHERE a.name =~ $pattern OR any(x IN a.aliases WHERE x =~ $pattern)
RETURN a.id AS id, a.name AS name, a.aliases AS aliases, a.description AS description,
       a.references AS references, a.campaigns AS campaigns
LIMIT 25
Run yourself →

Techniques this actor uses, grouped by the tactic each one serves.


MATCH (a:ACTOR {name: $name})-[:USES_TECHNIQUE]->(t:ATTACK_PATTERN)
OPTIONAL MATCH (t)-[:USES_TACTIC]->(tac:ATTACK_PATTERN)
RETURN t.id AS techniqueId, t.name AS techniqueName, tac.id AS tacticId, tac.name AS tacticName
LIMIT 1000
Run yourself →

Infrastructure publicly attributed to this actor.


MATCH (n)-[:ATTRIBUTED_TO]->(a:ACTOR {name: $name})
RETURN labels(n)[0] AS kind, n.name AS name
LIMIT 25
Run yourself →

Or query Whisper from your own LLM workflow via the Whisper MCP server.