With Israeli software, they spied on journalists, politicians and activists around the world

Israeli software designed to track down criminals and terrorists has been used to infiltrate at least 37 cell phones. who belonged to journalists, human rights activists, company directors and two women close to Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

This is one of the main conclusions of a survey published this Sunday and conducted The Washington Post and 16 other media with the help of Amnesty International and the French association Forbidden Stories.

Amnesty International and forbidden stories had access to a list of more than 50,000 telephone numbers and they shared them with the media, who used them for their research.

Of these 50,000 telephone numbers, 37 were infiltrated with the software, Based on research.

The program at the center of the controversy is “spyware” or spyware called Pegasus and created by Israeli tech company NSO Group, which sells this program to up to 60 military, intelligence or security agencies in 40 countries around the world.

Pegasus first made headlines in 2016, when the prestigious Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto discovered vulnerabilities in iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system.

Later in 2019, 1,400 people, including several Catalan politicians, were spied on by Pegasus, who took advantage of a vulnerability in WhatsApp to infiltrate phones.

Now however The Washington Post revealed the existence of a list of 50,000 telephone numbers belonging to countries known to spy on their citizens or which are customers of NSO Group.

From these figures, the research authors were able to identify 1,000 people living in 50 countries around the world.

They include several members of Arab royal families, at least 65 senior business executives, 85 human rights activists, 189 journalists and over 600 politicians and government officials, including heads of state and government, ministers and diplomats.

In the views

The Washington Post and the other media could not find out what exactly was the purpose of the 50,000 names list. They also don’t know who created the list and how many phones were targeted.

For the moment, they have been able to confirm that 37 were infiltrated, even for a few seconds.

Governments or security agencies that have used Pegasus to infiltrate the phones of journalists, activists and other politicians they would have violated the user license created by the NSO group, which theoretically designed these programs to monitor terrorists and criminals.

In statements to The Washington Post, NSO Group declined to identify the governments to which it sold the spyware.

However, media analysis concludes that of the list of 50,000 cell phone numbers, the highest number -15,000– They were in Mexico and belonged to politicians, journalists and trade unionists, among others.

Another large number of potential victims have been located in Qatar, Yemen, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

In addition, the investigation reveals that Pegasus tried to infiltrate the phone Hanan Elatr’s android, once one of Khashoggi’s wives, just six months before his death. It is not known whether these espionage attempts were successful.

In addition, the phone of his future fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, has been infiltrated with spyware. a few days after my death, according to a study published this Sunday.

In statements to The Washington Post, NSO defended that its programs help save lives and prevent criminal attacks and, further, found that the investigation lays unfounded accusations.

The list includes numbers of media journalists from around the world, such as Agence France-Presse, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The New York Times, Al Jazeera, France 24, Radio Free Europe, Mediapart, El País, Associated Press, Le Monde, Bloomberg, The Economist, Reuters and Voice of America, said The Guardian, one of the media that participated in the investigation.

The Guardian reported that the investigation suggests “widespread and continuous abuse” of Pegasus, which the ONS says is intended for use against criminals and terrorists.

Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based nonprofit media organization, initially gained access to the leak, which they later shared with the media.

Source: EFE and AFP

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