Hundreds of journalists, managers and human rights activists around the world have ended up in the crosshairs of “authoritarian” governments who have used the Pegasus software, from the Israeli NSO Group, to spy on them illegally. This was revealed by a survey conducted by 17 international newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Guardian, from which it emerges that the technology was also used by the Hungarian government of Victor Orban as part of its war on the media.
Orban’s staff, with the Washington Post, replies sharply: «In Hungary, state bodies authorized to use undercover tools are regularly monitored by governmental and non-governmental institutions. Did you ask the same question to the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany or France? ‘
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would also have resorted to Pegasus to target the cell phones of some people close to the slain journalist Jamal Kashoggi. The software, created to allow governments to follow terrorists and criminals, is a malware that infects iPhones and Android smartphones to allow those who operate it to have access and extract messages, photos, emails and also to secretly activate the microphone of the device. The list of phone numbers reported by the Pegasus investigation includes more than 50,000 numbers, concentrated in countries renowned for the surveillance of their citizens and NSO Group customers.
The list does not identify who has decided to enter the telephone numbers or why, and it is also not clear how many cell phones were targeted or spied on. Among the numbers identified so far by the investigation there would be those of several heads of state and prime minister. And those of journalists who appear in the list, dated 2016, are reporters from various newspapers including CNN, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Voice of America and Al Jazeera.
Analysis of the list shows that the NSO customer who dialed the most phone numbers is Mexico with over 15,000. Morocco and the United Arab Emirates have selected more than 10,000. The selected numbers have been tracked in over 45 countries on four continents. More than 10,000 numbers in European countries were selected by NSO’s customers, the survey read. The Israeli company, a giant in the sector, rejects the accusations, brandishing the conclusions of the investigation as exaggerated and baseless. The investigation reopens the debate on the widespread use of espionage tools that threaten democracy, critics say, observing how surveillance makes it difficult for journalists to gather information, for activists to continue their activities and for political opponents to plan. their strategies. With Pegasus, ex-US intelligence Timothy Summers highlights, you can spy on almost the entire world population: «There is nothing wrong with developing technologies that allow you to collect data. But humanity is not in a position to make so much power accessible to all ».