By Frank Bajak - The Associated Press
Journalists, human rights activists and politicians are being spied on by the Pegasus computer program, developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, according to an investigation published Monday by a global media consortium based on a massive data leak.
With a list of more than 50,000 cell phone numbers obtained by the non-profit journalistic organization Forbidden Stories and the human rights group Amnesty International (AI), more than a thousand people in 50 countries have been identified as alleged victims. of espionage.
Among them are 189 journalists, more than 600 politicians and government officials, 65 business executives, 85 human rights activists and several heads of state, according to The Washington Post newspaper, which is part of the investigation consortium.
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Among the victims are Mexican reporters such as Cecilio Pineda Birto, who was murdered in 2017 a few weeks after his number appeared on the leaked list.
The NSO Group has denied that the data collected from Pineda's phone contributed to his death, even if his cell phone had been attacked, according to Amnesty International.
Other spied journalists work for outlets such as The Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde and The Financial Times.
Amnesty International also reported that its forensic investigators had determined that the Pegasus spyware was installed on the cell phone of Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, just four days after he was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
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The NSO Group denied in an email to The Associated Press news agency that it has "a list of potential, past or existing targets."
In another statement, he claimed that the Forbidden Stories report is "full of flawed assumptions and unsubstantiated theories."
"The number of journalists identified as targets clearly illustrates that Pegasus is used as a tool to intimidate the media," said Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard.
"It is done with the aim of controlling public discourse, opposing scrutiny and silencing any dissident voice," he added.
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The company reiterates that it only sells its program to "vetted government agencies" against terrorists and dangerous criminals, and that it does not have access to its clients' data.
Experts call these claims dishonest and provide evidence that the NSO directly handles high-tech espionage, and that repeated abuse of the spyware highlights the near-total lack of regulation of the private global surveillance industry.
The identity of the source who leaked the data was not identified, nor was it explained how it was authenticated.
Although the presence of a phone number in the data does not mean
a device
hacking
was attempted
, the consortium said it believed the data indicates potential targets for NSO's government customers.
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The Washington Post recognized 37
hacked
phones
on the list.
The Guardian, also a member of the consortium, reported that Amnesty International has found traces of Pegasus on the cell phones of 15 journalists who had their phones examined after discovering that their number was in the leaked data.
NSO Group spyware has been involved in targeted surveillance primarily in the Middle East and Mexico.
They also feature on the phone lists of countries such as France, Hungary, India, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Pakistan.
Saudi Arabia is reportedly among NSO's clients.
The consortium's findings are based on extensive work by cybersecurity researchers, primarily from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.
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The objectives of this espionage
Among the NSO targets identified by investigators since 2016 are dozens of Al-Jazeera journalists and executives;
the head of the Beirut bureau of The New York Times, Ben Hubbard;
Moroccan journalist and activist Omar Radi;
and the Mexican reporter Carmen Aristegui.
The former head of The New York Times in Mexico City, Azam Ahmed, also appeared on the list.
Among the twenty documented Mexican targets are defenders of a tax on soft drinks, opposition politicians, human rights activists investigating disappearances and the widow of a murdered journalist.
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In the Middle East, the victims have been mostly journalists and dissidents, allegedly targeted by the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
These allegations reinforce allegations that not only autocratic regimes, but also democratic governments such as India and Mexico, have used the NSO Group's spyware for political purposes.
Pegasus infiltrates phones to obtain personal and location data and control cell phone cameras and microphones.
In the case of journalists, it allows
hackers to
spy on communications with sources.
The program is designed to avoid detection and to operate secretly.
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In 2019, the social network WhatsApp and its parent company, Facebook, sued the NSO Group in federal court in San Francisco, for exploiting a flaw in the popular encrypted messaging service to attack - with only missed calls - some 1,400 users.
NSO Group denied the allegations.
The Israeli company was sued the previous year in Israel and Cyprus, countries from which it exports products.
The plaintiffs included Al-Jazeera journalists, as well as other Qatari, Mexican and Saudi reporters and activists who claim their spyware was used to hack them.
NSO Group does not reveal the names of its clients and claims that it sells its technology to Israeli-approved governments to help them hunt down terrorists and disrupt pedophilia, sex trafficking and drug networks. Furthermore, it reiterates that its
software
has helped save thousands of lives and denies that its technology was involved in Khashoggi's murder.