It’s no secret that Israel uses advanced technology and surveillance to spy on Palestinians and human rights activists. You only have to visit the west bank to see the surveillance drones and CCTV so see that, you may even meet activists who have had their phones hacked it really is that common, but right now the Israeli Pegasus spyware has been exposed.
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Journalists reporting on human rights are being found dead all over the world including Mexico, Turkey and Vietnam. There is strong evidence to point to the fact that they have been targeted with Pegasus software developed by the Israeli NSO Group Technologies. Evidence shows that this spyware had been installed onto the phones of relatives and loved ones of these murdered journalists.
180 journalists around the world have claimed to have been selected as targets by clients of NSO Group Technologies. Its spyware Pegasus enables the remote surveillance of smartphones
Amnesty International’s security lab and Forbidden Stories have conducted investigations to find that many phones of politicians, activists and even judges were being monitories in different countries, breaching privacy laws.
Over 50,000 records of phone numbers belonging to politicians, journalists, activists and other prominent officials have been leaked showing that they had been selected for surveillance under Pegasus.
An official from Amnesty International said: “The numbers vividly show the abuse is widespread, placing journalists’ lives, those of their families and associates in danger, undermining freedom of the press and shutting down critical media,”
The NSO Group has responded claiming these are “wrong assumptions” and reiterated that the company was on a “life-saving mission”. It maintains its technology is used exclusively by intelligence agencies to track criminals and terrorists. But we know there is a very thin line.
Back in the days spyware would work on a laptop when an email containing malware was opened but nowadays spyware on your smartphone is much more subtle. Pegasus spyware gives NSO clients complete device access and thereby the ability to bypass even encrypted messaging apps like Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram. Pegasus can be activated at will until the device is shut off. As soon as it’s powered back on, the phone can be reinfected. It can also remotely record audio and video, extract data from messaging apps, use the GPS for location tracking and recover passwords and authentication keys, among other things.
Basically, privacy is being thrown out of the window and investigations like this raise the important question of what can we do to protect ourselves from the misuse of cyber weapons like Pegasus and how this is impacting our freedom of speech when it comes to advocating for human rights.
