LONDON (Reuters) – Citizen Lab, which specializes in detecting surveillance software, said on Monday it had warned British officials of an attempted hack with spyware inside the Prime Minister’s Office itself and of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The software, developed by Israeli firm NSO and known as Pegasus, can be used to remotely penetrate iPhones, giving access to a targeted device’s memory or turning it into a recording device.
“We confirm that in 2020 and 2021, we observed and notified the UK government of multiple suspected cases of Pegasus spyware infections within official UK networks,” Citizen Lab said in a post on its website. site.
The lab, which studies the dangers of computer surveillance, found evidence of a security breach within UK government departments by monitoring internet traffic and various digital signals routed to the spy servers that control Pegasus for various clients of NSO.
A spokesperson for NSO claimed that these claims were “false and could not be linked to NSO’s products for technological and contractual reasons”.
On the UK side, a spokesperson said the government does not routinely comment on security issues.
Citizen Lab added that it believed the targeting related to the Prime Minister’s Office was carried out by NSO clients in the United Arab Emirates, while that of the Foreign Ministry came from other countries including Cyprus, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. ‘India.
Cypriot authorities “categorically deny” any involvement in the case, government spokesman Marios Pelekanos told Reuters.
Spokespersons for the governments of the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and India did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
(Reporting Christopher Bing and MicheleKambas, French version Augustin Turpin; editing by Kate Entringer)
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