translated from Spanish: Global impact of discovery of Israeli software that helped spy on reporters and social activists around the globe

That is one of the main findings of an investigation published on Sunday and carried out by The Washington Post and 16 other media outlets with the help of Amnesty International and the French non-profit organization Forbidden Stories.Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories had access to a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers and shared them with the media. , who used them for their research. Of those 50,000 phone numbers, 37 were infiltrated with the software program, according to the investigation. The program at the center of the controversy is a “spyware” or spyware called Pegasus and created by the Israeli technology firm NSO Group, which sells that program to up to 60 military, intelligence or security agencies in 40 countries around the world. Pegasus made headlines for the first time in 2016, when the University of Toronto’s prestigious Citizen Lab discovered vulnerabilities in iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system.Later, in 2019, 1,400 people, including several Catalan politicians, were victims of Pegasus spying, which took advantage of a WhatsApp vulnerability to infiltrate phones. Now, however, The Washington Post revealed the existence of a list of 50,000 phone numbers belonging to countries famous for spying on their citizens or who are NSO customers Group.De those numbers, the authors of the research were able to identify 1,000 people living in 50 countries around the world. These include several members of Arab royal families, at least 65 senior business officials, 85 human rights activists, 189 journalists and more than 600 politicians and government officials, including heads of state and government, ministers and diplomats. The Washington Post and the other media outlets have been unable to find out exactly what the purpose of the list of 50,000 names was. They also don’t know who created the list and how many of the phones were snophoned. So far, they have been able to confirm that 37 were indeed infiltrated, even if only for a few seconds. Governments or security agencies that used Pegasus to infiltrate the phones of journalists, activists and other politicians allegedly violated the use license created by NSO Group, which in theory designed those programs to monitor terrorists and criminals. Speaking to The Washington Post, NSO Group refused to identify the governments to which it has sold the spyware. However, the media analysis concludes that, of the list of 50,000 cell phone numbers, the largest number – 15,000 – were in Mexico and belonged to politicians, journalists and trade unionists, among others. Another large number of possible victims have been located in Qatar, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.The investigation also reveals that Pegasus tried to infiltrate the Android phone of Hanan Elatr, who was one of Khashoggi’s wives, just six months before his death. It is not known whether these spying attempts were successful. In addition, the phone that was later his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, was infiltrated by spyware just days after she died, according to research released today. Speaking to The Washington Post, NSO defended that its programs help save lives and prevent criminal attacks and, in addition, considered that the investigation makes unfounded accusations.

Original source in Spanish