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July 19, 2021

Israeli Spyware Company's Software Targeted Phones of Journalists and Politicians Around the World
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A joint investigation by 17 news outlets, including The Guardian and The
Washington Post, found Israeli surveillance company NSO Group's Pegasus
software targeted the phones of journalists, activists and political
figures around the world for foreign governments. A massive data leak,
shared with the publications by Amnesty International and Forbidden
Stories, a Paris-based nonprofit, contained over 50,000 phone numbers
gathered since 2016, which reportedly includes heads of state. It's
unclear how many phones were actually breached. The report has
identified 37 hacks out of 67 smartphones that were analyzed. The
Washington Post said the cellphone of Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of its
slain columnist Jamal Khashoggi, was infected with the malware days
after his murder in October 2018 at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.


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