The Pegasus Spyware Is Getting More And More Worrying, Now Polish Politicians Are The Victim

Polish senator Krzysztof Brejza and several others were targeted by Pegasus. (photo: unsplash)

JAKARTA - Spyware Pegasus made by an Israeli technology company, NSO, has again taken its toll. This time the Polish Senator, Krzysztof Brejza, and several others were targeted by the perpetrators behind the spyware.

The incident was re-reported by the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, which said that Brejza's cell phone was hacked using NSO Group's Pegasus spyware 33 times between 26 April 2019 and 23 October 2019.

Brejza has been helping run the opposition campaign against the right-wing government of Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who is currently in power. Brejza was slandered by hackers placing fake photos on his cellphone and was accused of a scandal, then this information went viral because it was reported by a government-backed news agency.

Morawiecki ultimately won the election by a narrow margin. Brejza is known as a hardliner against corruption. He knew that his call would provide anyone with information about his campaign strategy as well as the corruption whistleblowers who put their trust in him.

Citizen Lab also revealed that Pegasus was used to hack the phones of Polish prosecutors Ewa Wrzosek and Roman Giertych, a lawyer for Brejza's party Civic Platform.

Even so, Morawiecki and the Polish government have denied involvement in the hacking, European Union member states have started talking about the incident.

"EU governments using spyware on political opponents and critics is unacceptable. The EU Commission should be able to stop ducking this issue. Such practices have no place in the EU and should be banned," tweeted Dutch EU Parliamentarian Sophie.

Senior researcher at Citizen Lab, John Scott-Railton said that Polish victims of Pegasus were particularly well-known because they used Pegasus for political ends in European democracies. The researchers' worst fear is that Pegasus could be used on a large scale to influence politics and human rights.

"Pegasus is also being used to erode major international institutions and the people who work there. Taken together, despite the recent dismal economic news of NSO, the picture is of a company that behaves recklessly and ignores the tremendous losses it inflicts," said Scott-Railton.

"NSO has just set itself up as an example of how bad the industry is," he added.

Previously reported, NSO Group was blacklisted by the United States (US) government last month, after it was revealed that Pegasus was used to hack the phones of several US State Department officials in Uganda. The NSO Group is now facing significant problems, including lawsuits from Apple.