It is installed quietly and secretly. From far. Just because. The software Pegasus from the Israeli company NSO has it all. It is considered to be the number one espionage program.
No wonder: With the help of Pegasus, conversations can be overheard, the camera activated, the location determined and messages read along with it. Without the victim noticing. Ideal for the work of the secret services. But so far it was not clear to what extent. But it’s huge.
Now a list has emerged with more than 50,000 phone numbers. Everything observed. Sacrifice of Pegasus. A network of journalists from all over the world evaluated this list. The result is terrifying.
Program made headlines in 2016
High-profile politicians, lawyers and journalists are among the espionage victims. Including people who were in contact with Jamal Khashoggi (1958–2018). The journalist was brutally murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. His body was never found. A special command from Riyadh is said to have killed him. Apparently on behalf of the Saudi royal family. Before his death, Khashoggi lived in exile in the US, where he wrote columns for the Washington Post.
Pegasus made headlines back in 2016. At that time, Apple stopped a security hole that had been exposed by the software. With the help of the program one could gain access to iPhones and other Apple devices. According to the IT security company Lookout, thanks to three previously unknown software vulnerabilities, the program was able to read messages and e-mails, track calls, access passwords, make sound recordings and track the whereabouts of the user, among other things.
NSO kept a low profile
And even then, the program was used against journalists and human rights activists. Apple plugged the security holes in the iPhone system iOS – around two weeks after the first suspicion.
It is unprecedented that software for monitoring iPhones with such capabilities, which are mostly only attributed to secret services, has been discovered and analyzed.
An NSO spokesman told the New York Times that they only sell to government agencies and that they strictly adhere to export regulations. He did not want to provide any information on whether the company’s software was in use in the United Arab Emirates or in Mexico. (jmh)