The digital security organization Citizen Lab reported that the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) is distorting the investigations that have been conducted on espionage attacks with the Pegasus malware.
In a statement, Citizen Lab director Ronald J. Deibert said the Attorney General’s Office has used fragments “taken out of context” of its own documentation to “misleadingly suggest that our investigations in the years 2017-2019 found no evidence of Pegasus attacks in Mexico.”
In Spanish: Statement by the Director of Citizen Lab pic.twitter.com/V81w6YIpl3
— profdeibert (@RonDeibert) July 21, 2021
This, after the Attorney General’s Office maintained that the security institution “did not carry out a forensic or expert technical analysis of the cell phone equipment” and that it “has no evidence that a Mexican government agency installed the Pegasus malware on any device.”
Citizen Lab reminded the FGR that it was its investigation that identified attempted spying attacks against at least 25 people in Mexico, including journalists, lawyers, defenders, activists and politicians.
The director maintained that they have provided oral and written documentation to the Prosecutor’s Office, and have even given it technical recommendations.
“We do not understand why the Attorney General’s Office has chosen this moment to distort our statements regarding our own investigations precisely when more evidence has emerged from other sources documenting the attacks on civil society in Mexico,” he said.
An investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International indicates that up to 50 thousand phone numbers could be identified as “people of interest” – including lawyers, activists and journalists – by the company NSO, creator of the Pegasus spy malware.
The research suggests there has been “widespread and ongoing abuse” of Pegasus software since 2016, though NSO insists it has only been used against criminals and terrorists.
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