#NSOGroup
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14/02/2024
A nivel mundial, la adquisición y utilización de sistemas para vigilancia ilegal, labores de espionaje o vulneración a la privacidad de las personas desataron una avalancha de cuestionamientos sobre las múltiples violaciones a derechos humanos cometidas contra las víctimas del uso estatal de estos softwares. México no fue la excepción, el caso Pegasus significó el mayor escándalo en el uso de estas tecnologías, el cual, aún está pendiente de resolverse para conocer los detalles de su adquisición, así como los alcances de su uso.
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Predator Files
2 Minuten und alles Private ist kopiert
Unser Ehrenmitglied Edward Snowden schreibt in seinem Buch "Permanent Record", dass sich die NSA Spionagesoftware nach einem Klick auf den falschen Link innerhalb von Sekundenbruchteilen auf dem Zielrechner - PC, Tablet oder Smartphone - einnistet. Die Schweizer Wochenzeitung WOZ widmet diesem Thema einen ausführlichen Artikel mit besonderem Blick auf die Geschäfte der Intellexa-Allianz um den israelischen Exgeheimdienstler Tal Dilian, die Überwachungstrojaner auch an Despoten verkauft. Ihr besonderes Augenmerk liegt auf diesen "Geschäften", weil dabei die Schweiz als sicherer Hafen zur Verschleierung dieser Deals benutzt wird.
Dieser Bericht ist so umfassend, dass wir davon keine Kurzfassung erzeugen wollen, also selber lesen. Es beginnt so: Es dauert zwei Minuten. Es ist der 22. Juni 2021. Um 14.33 Uhr klickt der ägyptische Exil-Politiker auf einen Link, den er über Whatsapp erhalten hat. 120 Sekunden später ist "Predator" in sein Smartphone eingedrungen. Still und heimlich verschafft sich die Software Zugang zu allen Inhalten, greift auf Fotos und Kontakte zu, aktiviert Kamera und Mikrofon – und verwandelt das Gerät in einen mächtigen Spion.
So illegal die Geschäfte Dilians auch sind, er hat keine Probleme sie von der Schweiz und aus Zypern zu betreiben. 2019 demonstrierte er in einem Videointerview, das er dem US-Wirtschaftsmagazin "Forbes" gab, wie man aus seinem hochgerüsteten Spionagefahrzeug, einem früheren Ambulanzwagen auf alle Handys im Umkreis von 500m zugreifen kann. Das brachte ihm zwar auf Zypern eine Geldbuße von 925000€ wegen "Abfischens privater Daten" aber auch weltweite Publicity ein und das Geschäft läuft noch heute.
Im Bericht der WOZ werden noch viele Details genannt und auch viele seiner Kunden entlarvt ...
Mehr dazu bei https://www.woz.ch/2340/ueberwachung/die-predator-files/!SQSEPFPJ45YS
Kategorie[21]: Unsere Themen in der Presse Short-Link dieser Seite: a-fsa.de/d/3wL
Link zu dieser Seite: https://www.aktion-freiheitstattangst.org/de/articles/8555-20231015-predator-files.htm
#Predator#Israel#NSOGroup#TalDilian#Cyberwar#Hacking#Trojaner#Despoten#Smartphone#Handy#IMSI-Catcher#Schweiz#Zypern#Anonymisierung#Verbraucherdatenschutz#Datenschutz#Datensicherheit#Lauschangriff#Überwachung#Verschlüsselung
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14/03/2023
La intrusión desautorizada a la vida privada de “enemigos del presidente” se limitó a comunicadores que no hacen promoción y apología de la gestión pública.
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Pegasus spyware found on Boris Johnson's phone, UAE attack suspected: report
Israeli spyware used by authoritarian regimes worldwide to monitor dissidents has been found on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's phone, The New Yorker magazine revealed on Monday.
Experts from the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab came across multiple signs that the Pegasus spyware had been used to infect devices belonging to the UK Prime Ministry and Foreign Office, including Johnson's phone.The cyberattack against Johnson is believed to have originated in the United Arab Emirates, the researchers said.The attacks targeting devices belonging to the Foreign office were linked to the UAE, India, Cyprus and Jordan.
"We will occasionally observe cases where we suspect that governments are using spyware to undertake international espionage against other governments," Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab and Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, told The New Yorker.Deibert's team notified the UK government in 2020 and in 2021 that they had identified suspected instances of Pegasus infections.The Pegasus software, developed by a private Israeli company called the NSO Group, gives hackers access to a phone's entire contents and allows them to use its camera and microphone at will. In many instances, Pegasus has been used by authoritarian regimes to target journalists, opponents and civil society activists.The NSO Group maintains that its software is not used against human rights defenders, and instead plays a vital role in combatting "terrorists, paedophiles and hardened criminals."
#BorisJohnson#UKPrimeMinister#UAE#UnitedArabEmirates#pegasus#uaepegasusborisjohnson#spyware#NSOGroup
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I haven’t been posting personal pictures or details of what I have been doing for some time. As many of you will know I was the first confirmed Brit to have evidence of NSO Pegasus software (spyware) on their phone, after a forensic investigation by amnesty international. My private photos, emails, messages and even my location were all hacked and taken by the UAE and More specifically Dubai. Why? Because I spend all my free time helping victims of injustice in the UAE and most high profile of all was helping a Dubai princesses get their freedom @freelatifa. I should not have let these bullies in Dubai make me life in the shadows, in fear or change how I live my life or things I do. One should never give into bullies, especially not despots and dictators. #Freedom #Sun #happiness #Cornwall #Positivity #pegasus #hacking #Nsogroup #uae #Dubai (at Cornwall) https://www.instagram.com/p/CTx7vlWICuI/?utm_medium=tumblr
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NO TRANSACTION WITH NSO GROUP: MINISTRY OF DEFENCE ON THE COMPANY AT THE CENTRE OF SNOOPING ROW Swipe left to read more. Follow @the_unopinion for more updates. #nsogroup #notransaction #ministryofdefence #pegasus #pegasussnoopingcontroversy #pegasussoftware #dailynews #news #dailynewsupdates #digitalnews #updates #newsupdates #the_unopinion https://www.instagram.com/p/CSYueHDlds2/?utm_medium=tumblr
#nsogroup#notransaction#ministryofdefence#pegasus#pegasussnoopingcontroversy#pegasussoftware#dailynews#news#dailynewsupdates#digitalnews#updates#newsupdates#the_unopinion
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"Only15% of Indians are aware of Pegasus Spyware," in a survey conducted by Prashnam. 3,500 people were sampled across 12 states, covering 356 districts. Majority thinks that Pegasus is a new COVID-19 vaccine than a #spyware. #NSOGroup #NSO #spying #PegausSpyware #Modigovernment #covid19 #COVID19Vaccine #vaccine #PegasusSpyware #pegasus #nso #spying https://www.instagram.com/p/CSL33kvLzTb/?utm_medium=tumblr
#spyware#nsogroup#nso#spying#pegausspyware#modigovernment#covid19#covid19vaccine#vaccine#pegasusspyware#pegasus
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Morocco files French libel suit over Pegasus spyware claim
#Amnesty#Claim#Files#forbiddenstories#French#israels#libel#Macron#Morocco#NSOGroup#Pegasus#RadioFrance#spyware#Suit#WashingtonPost
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Israeli ministers to look into NSO spyware charges | India News
Israel has set up a senior inter-ministerial team to look into growing allegations that the Pegasus spyware sold by an Israeli cyber firm has been abused in India, France, Mexico, Morocco and Iraq, an Israeli source said on Wednesday. However, the source deemed it “doubtful” that new curbs would be placed on the spyware’s exports. Stopping short of describing the team’s task as a formal investigation, the source said: “The objective is to find out what happened, to look into this issue and learn lessons.”
The inter-ministerial team is headed by Israel’s National Security Council, which answers to PM Naftali Bennett and has broader areas of expertise than the defence ministry, which oversees exports of NSO Group’s software.
“This event is beyond the defence ministry purview,” the source said, referring to potential diplomatic blowback.
Commenting on the development, an NSO spokesperson said: "We welcome any decision made by the government of Israel, and we are convinced that the company’s activities are without flaw."
Bennett's office declined comment. Addressing a cyber conference on Wednesday, the prime minister did not mention the NSO affair.
A global investigation published on Sunday by 17 media organisations, led by the Paris-based non-profit journalism group Forbidden Stories, said Pegasus had been used in attempted and successful hacks of smartphones belonging to journalists, government officials and human rights activists.
NSO has rejected the reporting by the media partners, saying it was "full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories". Pegasus is intended for use only by government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism and crime, NSO said.
Such purposes are also what guide Israel's export policy, defence minister Benny Gantz said in a speech on Tuesday. But, in a reference to the allegations around Pegasus, he added: "We are currently studying the information published on the matter."
At the conference, Bennett said Israel has memorandums of understanding with dozens of countries about cyber security, which he wants to upgrade into a "global cyber defence shield".
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#Breakingnews#forbiddenstories#Googlenews#India#Indianews#Indianewstoday#israelsnationalsecuritycouncil#NSO#NSOGroup#pegasus#pmnaftalibennett#Todaynews
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24/02/2019
Importante precedente en la protección de la actuación de la sociedad civil organizada.
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Undercover spy exposed in NYC was 1 of many
AP Exclusive: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was 1 of many
LONDON — When mysterious operatives lured two cybersecurity researchers to meetings at luxury hotels over the past two months, it was an apparent bid to discredit their research about an Israeli company that makes smartphone hacking technology used by some governments to spy on their citizens. The Associated Press has now learned of similar undercover efforts targeting at least four other individuals who have raised questions about the use of the Israeli firm’s spyware.
The four others targeted by operatives include three lawyers involved in related lawsuits in Israel and Cyprus alleging that the company, the NSO Group, sold its spyware to governments with questionable human rights records. The fourth is a London-based journalist who has covered the litigation. Two of them — the journalist and a Cyprus-based lawyer — were secretly recorded meeting the undercover operatives; footage of them was broadcast on Israeli television just as the AP was preparing to publish this story.
All six of the people who were targeted said they believe the operatives were part of a co-ordinated effort to discredit them.
“There’s somebody who’s really interested in sabotaging the case,” said one of the targets, Mazen Masri, who teaches at City University, London and is advising the plaintiffs’ attorney in the case in Israel.
Masri said the operatives were “looking for dirt and irrelevant information about people involved.”
The details of these covert efforts offer a glimpse into the sometimes shadowy world of private investigators, which includes some operatives who go beyond gathering information and instead act as provocateurs. The targets told the AP that the covert agents tried to goad them into making racist and anti-Israel remarks or revealing sensitive information about their work in connection with the lawsuits.
NSO has previously said it has nothing to do with the undercover efforts “either directly or indirectly.” It did not return repeated messages asking about the new targets identified by the AP. American private equity firm Francisco Partners, which owns NSO, did not return a message from the AP seeking comment.
The undercover operatives’ activities might never have been made public had it not been for two researchers who work at Citizen Lab, an internet watchdog group that is based out of the University of Toronto’s Munk School.
In December, one of the researchers, John Scott-Railton, realized that a colleague had been tricked into meeting an operative at a Toronto hotel, then questioned about his work on NSO. When a second operative calling himself Michel Lambert approached Scott-Railton to arrange a similar meeting at the Peninsula Hotel in New York, Scott-Railton devised a sting operation, inviting AP journalists to interrupt the lunch and videotape the encounter.
The story drew wide attention in Israel. Within days, Israeli investigative television show Uvda and The New York Times identified Lambert as Aharon Almog-Assouline, a former Israeli security official living in the plush Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Hasharon.
By then, Scott-Railton and the AP had determined the undercover efforts went well beyond Citizen Lab.
Within hours of the story’s publication, Masri wrote to the AP to say that he and Alaa Mahajna, who is pursuing the lawsuit against NSO in Israel, had spent weeks parrying offers from two wealthy-sounding executives who had contacted them with lucrative offers of work and insistent requests to meet in London.
“We were on our guard and did not take the bait,” Masri wrote.
Masri’s revelation prompted a flurry of messages to others tied to litigation involving NSO. Masri and Scott-Railton say they discovered that Christiana Markou, a lawyer representing plaintiffs in a related lawsuit against NSO-affiliated companies in Cyprus, had been flown to London for a strange meeting with someone who claimed to be a Hong Kong-based investor. Around the same time, Masri found out that a journalist who had written about NSO was also invited to a London hotel — twice — and questioned about his reporting.
“Things are getting more interesting,” Masri wrote as the episodes emerged.
——
Like Almog-Assouline, the undercover operative the AP exposed in New York, the covert agents who pursued the lawyers made a string of operational errors.
The attempt to ensnare Alaa Mahajna, the lead lawyer in the Israeli suit, was a case in point.
On Nov. 26 he heard from a man who said his name was Marwan Al Haj and described himself as a partner at a Swedish wealth management firm called Lyndon Partners. Al Haj offered Mahajna an intriguing proposition. Al Haj said one of his clients, an ultra-rich individual with family ties to the Middle East, needed legal assistance recovering family land seized by Jewish settlers following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
“I believe you may be a good fit for this challenging task,” Al Haj wrote.
The request made sense. As a human rights lawyer based in Jerusalem, Mahajna has defended Palestinian activists and others at the receiving end of the Israeli government’s ire. But Mahajna became suspicious as he tried to learn more about the case. Al Haj was cagey about his client and seemed unwilling to provide any paperwork, Mahajna told the AP.
“Not even the basic stuff,” Mahajna said. “Usually people flood you with documents and stories.”
Mahajna said he was unsettled when Al Haj suddenly offered him an all-expenses-paid trip to London; no one had even asked him whether the case had any hope of success.
“At some point it was abundantly clear that this is not a bona fide approach,” Mahajna said.
Ten days later, Masri, the legal adviser in the Israeli lawsuit, received an email offering him a place on the advisory board of a Zurich-based company called APOL Consulting.
Masri became skeptical after he checked out the company’s website. Consulting firms typically trade on their employees’ intelligence and skill, so Masri expected the company’s site to prominently display the names, headshots and qualifications of its staff.
“Here there wasn’t even a name of one human,” he said.
When Masri turned down the position on APOL’s board, the representative who’d contacted him — a man who called himself Cristian Ortega — pressed Masri to see him in London anyway.
“I would consider it a privilege to have a chance to meet you in person for a friendly chat,” Ortega said in a Jan. 7 email. “No strings attached of course.”
Masri said that by then he and Mahajna had come to believe that Ortega and Al Haj were fictions and that their companies were imaginary.
But they didn’t yet know how widespread the covert operations were.
——
The undercover agents got a little further with Christiana Markou, the lawyer who is pursuing the Cypriot case against NSO-affiliated entities.
Her lawsuit, like Mahajna’s, draws heavily on reports by Citizen Lab that found that NSO spyware had been used to break into the phones of the Mexican activists and journalists who are the plaintiffs in both cases.
Markou told the AP she was approached over email Dec. 21 by a man who presented himself as Olivier Duffet, a partner at Hong Kong-based ENE Investments.
Duffet was ostensibly interested in inviting Markou — a leading data protection and privacy lawyer in Cyprus — to give a lecture at a conference. Markou said she proposed discussing the lecture over Skype, but he insisted on an in-person meeting in London, eventually flying her out, putting her up in a fancy hotel and chatting for a little more than an hour.
Most of the discussion revolved around the proposed lecture — but then Duffet suddenly pivoted to the NSO case, asking her whether she felt the lawsuit was winnable and who was funding it.
Markou said she “gave either incorrect answers or expressly refused to answer” because she found his questions suspicious.
Yet another target, Eyad Hamid, a London-based journalist who wrote a story about NSO, said he was also invited to a London hotel on two separate occasions to discuss his coverage of the Israeli company.
The purported company used in the operation targeting him was Mertens-Giraud Partners Management, which was described as a Brussels-based wealth management firm.
Neither MGP — nor any of the other companies — truly existed. The AP’s searches of the Orbis database of some 300 million companies, local corporate registries and trademark repositories turned up no trace of a Swiss firm called APOL, a Swedish company called Lyndon partners, a Belgian company called Mertens-Giraud or a Hong Kong-based firm named ENE Investments. Local phone books didn’t carry listings for a Zurich-based man named Cristian Ortega, a Hong Kong-based man named Olivier Duffet or anyone in Sweden bearing the name Marwan Al Haj.
There was no hint of APOL when the AP visited its supposed office not far from Zurich’s central train station; tenants said they’d never heard of the company. It was the same story in Hong Kong; a management representative at the Central Building, where ENE Investments was supposedly located, said he didn’t know anything about the company. An AP journalist wasn’t able to speak to anyone at Mertens-Giraud’s alleged office on Brussels’ Rue des Poissoniers; the entire building was boarded up for renovations.
At the modern office block in downtown Stockholm where Lyndon Partners claimed to have its headquarters, service manager Elias Broberger said he could find no trace of the wealth management firm.
“It says they are located here,” Broberger said as he examined Lyndon Partners’ professional-looking website. “But we don’t have them in any of our systems: not the booking system; not the member system. We don’t bill them; they don’t bill us.
“I can’t find them.”
——
Who hired the undercover agents remains unclear, but their operational and digital fingerprints suggest they are linked.
The six operatives all began approaching their targets around the same time with individually tailored pitches. Their bogus websites followed the same patterns; all of them were hosted on Namecheap and many were bought at auction from GoDaddy and used the Israeli web design platform Wix. The formatting of the websites was similar; in at least two instances — MGP and Lyndon Partners — it was identical. Even the operatives’ email signatures were the same — consisting of three neatly packed, colorful lines consisting of a phone number, web address and email.
The operatives’ LinkedIn pages were similar, too, featuring men in sunglasses shot from a distance, facing away from the camera, or at unusual angles — a tactic sometimes use to frustrate facial recognition algorithms.
Despite the indications that the undercover agents are all linked, there is no conclusive evidence who they might work for. An Israeli television channel, Channel 12, broadcast a report on Saturday claiming that an Israeli private investigation firm, Black Cube, had been investigating issues around the lawsuits against NSO. The TV channel showed secretly shot footage of the Cypriot lawyer, Markou, and the London journalist, Hamid, which matched the pair’s description of their encounters with undercover agents.
The TV segment was critical of the lawyers suing NSO, and quoted NSO founder Shalev Hulio in an interview accusing Markou and her colleagues of pursuing the lawsuits as a “PR exercise.”
NSO has previously denied hiring Black Cube, and Black Cube in a letter sent last month to the AP said it was not involved in the effort to ensnare researchers at Citizen Lab. “Black Cube had nothing to do with these alleged events,” the letter said, adding that no one acting on the company’s behalf did either.
Black Cube does have a possible tie to Almog-Assouline, the man who held the hotel meeting about NSO in New York. During a long-running Canadian legal battle between two private equity firms — Catalyst Capital and West Face Capital — one man caught up in the litigation said he recognized Almog-Assouline because he’d been approached by the same operative under a different identity several years ago.
“I recognized the individual, down to the accent and the anecdotes,” said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
In court filings, Black Cube has acknowledged dispatching agents to meet with “various individuals” involved in in the private equity firms’ feud. But it’s unclear if other investigations firms might also have done work connected to the two companies’ legal battle.
Black Cube did not respond to repeated questions about whether it had ever employed Almog-Assouline. The firm previously drew international opprobrium for its unrelated work protecting the reputation of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Almog-Assouline himself denied working for Black Cube when two AP reporters confronted him in New York last month.
He has refused to answer any questions since.
When an AP reporter rang the door at his penthouse in Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Hasharon a week ago, a woman who identified herself as his wife said he wasn’t home. When the reporter followed up with a phone call to Almog-Assouline, he said: “I have no interest in speaking to you.”
——
Aron Heller in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, David Keyton in Stockholm, Sweden, Jamey Keaten in Zurich, Vincent Yu in Hong Kong, Sylvain Plazy in Brussels, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Meneloas Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.
——
Online:
Documents related to the undercover operation: https://www.documentcloud.org/search/projectid:42174-Citizen-Lab-Und
——
Raphael Satter can be reached on: http://raphaelsatter.com
Published at Mon, 11 Feb 2019 01:30:28 +0000
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#assouline#cybersecurity#hacking#hasharon#mahajna#markou#nsogroup#secretagent#spionage#spy#undercover
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Journalisten gehackt
Pressefreiheit auch "im Westen" nichts mehr wert?
Apple mag sicherer sein am Microsoft - sicher ist es noch lange nicht. Das mussten eine Reihe von Journalisten im letzten Sommer feststellen. Ihre iPhones wurden mit Pegasus Software des israelischen Unternehmen NSO Group gehackt.
Die Angriffe sind zum Einen besorgniserregend, weil sie politisch motivierte Angriffe auf Journalisten darstellen und zu Anderen, weil sie technisch sehr kompliziert und deshalb kaum zu entdeckbar durchgeführt wurden.
Nach den Untersuchungen von Citizen Lab scheinen die Angriffe einen Zero-Click-Exploit verwendet zu haben, um iPhones über iMessage zu kompromittieren, was bedeutet, dass die Angriffe erfolgten, ohne dass die Opfer etwas tun mussten. Das hinterlässt viel weniger Spuren als eine direkte Verbindungsaufnahme.
Der Bericht von Citizen Lab besagt, dass "fast alle iPhone-Geräte", die nicht auf iOS 14 aktualisiert wurden, anfällig für den Hack zu sein scheinen.
Was können die Angreifer damit erreichen?
Die Spyware kann
Umgebungsgeräusche aufnehmen
Telefongespräche mitschneiden,
Fotos machen,
den Standort verfolgen und
auf Passwörter zugreifen.
Was will man mehr? ... und wer ist "man"?
Entdeckt wurde die Spyware und Verbindungen zu den Abhörservern u.a. auf den Handys des Al Jazeera Journalisten Tamer Almisshal und der Journalistin Rania Dridi von Araby TV in London. Der Guardian berichtet aber auch, dass die Software angeblich eingesetzt wurde, um Journalisten in Marokko, aber auch politische Dissidenten aus Ruanda und spanische Politiker abzuhören.
Es ist anzunehmen, dass die seit mindestens 2019 andauernden Abhörmaßnahmen im Interesse der israelischen Regierung waren. Citizen Lab sagt, es habe "Hinweise für die Annahme", dass einige der für die Umleitung des Datenverkehrs benutzten Proxy-Server im Auftrag der Regierung der Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate und ein anderer für die saudische Regierung arbeitet. Der Bericht von Citizien Lab über die technischen Einzelheiten des Hacks beschreibt die einzelnen Schritte und die beteiligten Server, sowie das Vorgehen zu ihrer Enttarnung genau.
Fazit:
Hundertprozentige Sicherheit gibt es nicht.
Die Unabhängigkeit von Journalisten ist auch "im Westen" nichts mehr wert. (Nebenbei: Freiheit für Julian Assange)
Vertrauen in proprietäre Software baut immer auf Sand.
Offene und freie Software ist nicht per se aber langfristig immer besser.
Mehr dazu bei https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/21/22192922/al-jazeera-journalists-hack-nso-group-hack-ios-imessage-zero-click-day
und der ganze Hack im Einzelnen https://citizenlab.ca/2020/12/the-great-ipwn-journalists-hacked-with-suspected-nso-group-imessage-zero-click-exploit/
und https://www.aktion-freiheitstattangst.org/de/articles/7566-20210304-journalisten-gehackt.htm
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No 10 suspected of being target of NSO spyware attack, Boris Johnson ‘told’
Boris Johnson has been told his Downing Street office has been targeted with “multiple” suspected infections using Pegasus, the sophisticated hacking software that can turn a phone into a remote listening device, it was claimed on Monday.
A report released by Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said the United Arab Emirates was suspected of orchestrating spyware attacks on No 10 in 2020 and 2021.
Pegasus is the hacking software – or spyware – developed, marketed and licensed to governments around the world by the Israeli firm NSO Group. It has the capability to infect phones running either iOS or Android operating systems.
Citizen Lab added there had also been suspected attacks on the Foreign Office over the same two years that were also associated with Pegasus operators linked to the UAE – as well as India, Cyprus and Jordan.
The researchers, considered among the world’s leading experts in detecting digital attacks, announced they had taken the rare step of notifying Whitehall of the attack as it “believes that our actions can reduce harm”.
However, they were not able to identify the specific individuals within No 10 and the Foreign Office who are suspected of having been hacked.
In a statement, Citizen Lab said: “We confirm that in 2020 and 2021 we observed and notified the government of the United Kingdom of multiple suspected instances of Pegasus spyware infections within official UK networks. These included: the prime minister’s office (10 Downing Street) [and] the Foreign and Commonwealth Office …
“The suspected infections relating to the FCO were associated with Pegasus operators that we link to the UAE, India, Cyprus and Jordan. The suspected infection at the UK prime minister’s office was associated with a Pegasus operator we link to the UAE.”
The Biden administration took the extraordinary step of placing NSO on a US blacklist last November, saying it had evidence the company had sold surveillance spyware to foreign governments that had used it for “transnational repression”. At the time, an NSO spokesperson said it was ‘“dismayed by the decision”.
The allegations will raise significant questions about a possible national security breach at the highest levels of the British government.
The governments of the UAE, India, Cyprus and Jordan have been approached for comment.
A UK government spokesperson said: “We do not routinely comment on security matters.”
An NSO spokesperson said: “NSO continues to be targeted by a number of politically motivated advocacy organisations like Citizen Lab and Amnesty to produce inaccurate and unsubstantiated reports based on vague and incomplete information.
“We have repeatedly cooperated with governmental investigations, where credible allegations merit. However, information raised regarding these allegations are, yet again, false and could not be related to NSO products for technological and contractual reasons.”
The Pegasus project, a collaborative investigation into NSO that included the Guardian, the Wire, Le Monde and the Washington Post, revealed dozens of cases last year in which NSO’s Pegasus was used by government clients, from Saudi Arabia to Mexico, to target dissidents and journalists. The work was among the recipients of the prestigious 2021 George Polk awards in journalism.
NSO is regulated by the Israeli defence ministry and sells Pegasus spyware to governments around the world. When it is successfully deployed against a target, Pegasus can infect any phone. It can intercept phone calls, view photographs, track an individual’s location and turn a phone into a remote listening device.
The Citizen Lab director, Ron Deibert, said he believed the infections could have been related to FCO devices located abroad. Explaining his reasoning for alerting Johnson, he explained that the UK “is currently in the midst of several ongoing legislative and judicial efforts relating to regulatory questions surrounding cyber policy”. Therefore, he added “we believe that it is critically important that such efforts are allowed to unfold free from the undue influence of spyware”.
The UK development comes months after an investigation into NSO found that the mobile phone of a serving French minister, François de Rugy, showed digital traces of activity associated with Pegasus spyware. His details appeared on a leaked database, which also included mobile numbers for the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and most of his 20-strong cabinet, along with the then prime minister, Édouard Philippe.
In response, an NSO Group spokesperson said Macron and other French officials on the list “are not and never have been Pegasus targets”. They added: “It is not a list of targets or potential targets of NSO’s customers.”
In October last year, a UK court found that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum of Dubai used Pegasus to hack the phone of his ex-wife Princess Haya and five of her associates.
The court found that the hacking of Haya and her associates, including Fiona Shackleton, who sits in the House of Lords, occurred while the former couple were locked in court proceedings in connection to the welfare of their two children.
Johnson’s government was accused by some MPs last November of prioritising trade agreements over national security in its handling of surveillance abuses on British soil by governments using Pegasus.
In November, a letter to the prime minister signed by 10 MPs and peers called on the government to end its cybersecurity programmes with countries that are known to have used NSO spyware to target dissidents, journalists and lawyers – and impose sanctions on NSO.
It also called for the suspension of all UK spyware licences and cybersecurity contracts with Gulf nations implicated in cyber-attacks in the UK.
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#BorisJohnson#UKPrimeMinister#UAE#UnitedArabEmirates#pegasus#uaepegasusborisjohnson#spyware#NSOGroup
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Apple sues Pegasus-maker NSO Group, says US citizens were the target
Apple sues Pegasus-maker NSO Group, says US citizens were the target
Apple Inc. on Tuesday said it has filed a lawsuit against Israeli cyber firm NSO Group and its parent company OSY Technologies for alleged surveillance of US Apple users and targeting them with its Pegasus spyware.
The iPhone maker said it is also seeking NSO Group a ban on the use of any Apple software, services or devices to prevent further misuse.
Apple is the latest in a series of companies…
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#apple iphone hacked#Apple iPhone Pegasus#Apple iPhone Pegasus Attack#Apple NSO Hacking#apple nso legal case#Apple NSO Phone Tracking#Apple NSOgroup Hacking#apple pegasus hacking#Apple sues NSOGroup#Apple vs NSOGroup#current#Discovery#harpianews#latest#news#Science#what is nsogroup
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior government officials in multiple U.S.-allied countries were targeted earlier this year with hacking software that used Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) WhatsApp to take over users’ phones, according to people familiar with the messaging company’s investigation.
Sources familiar with WhatsApp’s internal investigation into the breach said a “significant” portion of the known victims are high-profile government and military officials spread across at least 20 countries on five continents. Many of the nations are U.S. allies, they said.
The hacking of a wider group of top government officials’ smartphones than previously reported suggests the WhatsApp cyber intrusion could have broad political and diplomatic consequences. (...)
The total number of WhatsApp users hacked could be even higher. A London-based human rights lawyer, who was among the targets, sent Reuters photographs showing attempts to break into his phone dating back to April 1.
While it is not clear who used the software to hack officials’ phones, NSO has said it sells its spyware exclusively to government customers.
Some victims are in the United States, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Mexico, Pakistan and India, said people familiar with the investigation. Reuters could not verify whether the government officials were from those countries or elsewhere. (...)
Cybersecurity researchers have cast doubt on those claims over the years, saying NSO products were used against a wide range of targets, including protesters in countries under authoritarian rule. (...)
WhatsApp has said it sent warning notifications to affected users earlier this week. The company has declined to comment on the identities of NSO Group’s clients, who ultimately chose the targets.
When will people learn to stop using Facebook products? FACEBOOK IS EVIL
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Government officials around the globe targeted for hacking through WhatsApp - sources
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cyber-whatsapp-nsogroup/exclusive-whatsapp-hacked-to-spy-on-top-government-officials-at-u-s-allies-sources-idUSKBN1XA27H
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