The Washington Post: The investigation finds that spyware designed by Israel was used to infiltrate journalists and activists around the world

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Washington CNN –

37 smartphones belonging to journalists, rights activists, executives and two women linked to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi have been targeted by “military-grade spyware” licensed by an Israeli company to governments, according to a consortium investigation published by media organizations, including The Washington Post, Sunday. .

The Post reported Sunday that the phones were “on a list of more than 50,000 numbers concentrated in countries known to be involved in the surveillance of their citizens” and are known to be clients of NSO Group, whose Pegasus spyware is ostensibly licensed. To track down terrorists and top criminals.

Through the investigation, which was also carried out with the help of Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based non-profit journalism organisation, “media outlets were able to identify more than 1,000 people from more than 50 countries through research and interviews on four continents,” the newspaper said. Also featured on the list: Several members of the Arab royal family, at least 65 business executives, 85 human rights activists, 189 journalists, more than 600 politicians and government officials – including ministers, diplomats, military and security officers. The numbers of many heads of state and prime ministers.”

Phone numbers for reporters working abroad for CNN, The Associated Press, The Voice of America, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, France’s Le Monde, Britain’s Financial Times and Al Jazeera are from Among the numbers on the list date back to 2016, according to the Post. The newspaper did not mention the names of the reporters in its story. The Washington Post reported that “the list does not specify who put the numbers on it, or why, and it is not known how many phones have been targeted or monitored.”

CNN has not independently verified the results of the Pegasus Project investigation, which was organized by Forbidden Stories.

In a lengthy statement to CNN on Sunday, NSO Group vehemently denied the findings of the investigation, saying in part that it only sells “its technology to vetted government law enforcement and intelligence agencies for the sole purpose of saving lives by preventing acts of crime and terrorism.”

“NSO does not operate the system and has no view of the data,” the company said, saying it would continue to investigate “all credible allegations of abuse and take appropriate action based on the findings” of such investigations.

NSO also said its systems are “used daily to dismantle child harassment, sex and drug trafficking rings, locate missing and kidnapped children, locate survivors trapped under collapsed buildings, and protect airspace from disruptive intrusion by dangerous drones.”

The Post reported that while many of the numbers on the list were in the Middle East, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, “the largest number was in Mexico, where there are more than 15,000 numbers, including those affiliated with politicians.” And union representatives, journalists and others. Government critics were on the list.”

The newspaper reported that other countries, including India, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, France and Hungary, are also represented on the list.

The newspaper said the investigation found that “numbers of Americans working abroad were discovered on the list, in all but one case while using phones registered to foreign cellular networks.” “The consortium was unable to perform a forensic analysis on most of these phones.”

The newspaper pointed out that NSO “has said for years that its product cannot be used to monitor US phones” and added that the investigation “found no evidence of a successful hack of spyware on phones bearing the US country code.”

The spyware, developed a decade ago with the help of former Israeli internet spies, is designed to easily circumvent typical smartphone privacy measures, “such as strong passwords and encryption,” according to the newspaper, which said it can “attack phones without any warning to users.” and “read anything on the device a user can, while stealing photos, recordings, location logs, communications, passwords, call logs and social media posts.” The newspaper also noted that “spyware can also activate cameras and microphones for real-time monitoring.”

The newspaper said the Pegasus spyware could initiate the attack in several different ways, including through a “malicious link in an SMS or iMessage”. Some spyware companies use “zero-click” attacks, according to the newspaper, which introduce spyware simply by sending a message to the user’s phone without issuing any notification. “Users, don’t even need to touch their phones for the infection to start,” the newspaper stated.

In the Khashoggi case, the newspaper said the spyware targeted the two women closest to the late Washington Post journalist who was killed in October 2018.

“The phone of his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, was successfully infected during the days following his murder… and his wife, Hanan El Otar, whose phone was targeted by someone using Pegasus in the months before his murder. The newspaper said Amnesty was unable to determine whether the hack was successful .

In its statement, NSO denied the use of its technology in connection with the Khashoggi killing, saying: “Our technology has not been used to listen, monitor, track or collect information relating to him or his family members mentioned in the investigation.”

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