A software that can track all activities on a mobile phone, originally intended for use against criminals and terrorists, is used by totalitarian governments against citizens. A group of 16 media outlets is investigating how human rights activists, journalists and lawyers around the world have been spied on by governments using software sold by the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group, writes The Guardian. Among the targets were journalists, politicians and businessmen from Hungary.
The investigation suggests that there has been widespread abuse of Pegasus spyware, which the company insists is only intended to be used against criminals and terrorists.
Rights activists, journalists and lawyers around the world have been targeted by telephone malware sold to authoritarian governments by an Israeli surveillance firm, according to press reports. The journalists are in possession of a list of approximately 50,000 telephone numbers of people who are believed to be of interest to NSO clients. It is unclear where the list of phones that were actually broken came from, but the company denies any allegations.
Journalists, heads of state, businessmen, members of royal families - watched with the help of Israeli software
The allegations about the use of the software, known as Pegasus, were broadcast on Sunday by the Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde and 14 other media organizations around the world. Pegasus infects iPhones and Android devices to allow operators to extract messages, photos, and emails, record calls, and secretly activate microphones.
Forensic tests on several listed phones indicated that more than half had traces of spyware. It is said that about 180 journalists are on the list, from organizations such as Agence France-Presse, CNN, New York Times, Al Jazeera and many other weightlifting institutions. The list also includes heads of state and government, members of Arab royal families and businessmen.
But the scandal is not new. WhatsApp sued the NSO in 2019, claiming that this company is behind the cyber attacks on 1,400 mobile phones using this application. The furniture was infected with Pegasus software. At the time, the NSO denied any such action, but the company was banned from using WhatsApp.
Accusations in Hungary: More than 300 phone calls from government critics have been broken into
Journalistic investigations in the Hungarian press show that the phones of more than 300 individuals, journalists and businessmen, known as opponents of the Orban government, were pursued by the security services, using the Pegasus program. From the list of 50,000 telephone numbers circulated by the international press, Hungarian journalists discovered that about 300 belong to people in this country. The targets include a well-known lawyer and an opposition mayor, Telex.hu reports.
However, the data in the possession of the international team of journalists investigating this situation do not clearly indicate who exactly implemented the spyware program. However, the NSO stated that it only sells its services to governments and state organizations, and a number of reports show that spyware appeared in Hungary after high-level meetings between Israel and the United States in 2017 and 2018.
In addition, a former Hungarian intelligence officer told Direkt36 that according to his information, the national security agencies started using Pegasus in 2018, as the Hungarian-Israeli relationship became closer. The Hungarian government stated that "we are not aware of the alleged data collection" and added that Hungary was "a country governed by the rule of law". (Photo: Pixabay.com)