Through Pegasus, NSO Group Again Accused Of Spying On Journalists In Several Countries

A number of journalists from several media, reportedly have been spied on through the Pegasus program of the NSO Group. (photo: The Climate Reality Project/ unsplash)

JAKARTA - The Washington Post reported that a thorough investigation of 17 media sites in several countries found that NSO Group's Pegasus software had been used in an attempted hack on 37 smartphones belonging to human rights activists and journalists.

The report also said the calls were on a leaked list of numbers found by Paris non-profit journalists Hidden Stories and human rights group Amnesty International. The numbers on the list were selected for possible surveillance by NSO client countries, the report said.

NSO Group is known as a company that develops technology to help government agencies detect and prevent terrorism and crime. NSO products are used exclusively by government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to fight crime and terror. They usually market their spyware to the government to track down would-be terrorists and criminals.

In this case, The Guardian noted that Pegasus was able to extract all of the mobile device's data, and activate the device's microphone to silently listen to conversations. The list of journalists monitored is from 2016. Those monitored include journalists from The Washington Post, CNN, Associated Press, Voice of America, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Le Monde, Financial Times, and Al Jazeera.

The Guardian and its media partners have promised to reveal the identities of the people whose numbers appear on the list in the coming days. They include hundreds of business executives, religious leaders, academics, NGO employees, trade union officials, and government officials, including cabinet ministers, presidents, and prime ministers.

In a statement emailed to The Verge on Sunday, July 18, an NSO spokesperson denied the claims in the report. They also said the report was "full of erroneous assumptions and unsupported theories that raise serious doubts about the reliability and importance of the sources," and questioned the sources who provided the information.

"After examining their claims, we categorically deny the false accusations made in their report," the statement continued. NSO Group is also considering a defamation lawsuit. They stated that "these allegations are outrageous and far from reality."

This is not the first time NSO's Pegasus spyware has been accused of being part of a larger surveillance campaign. Between July and August 2020, research organization Citizen Lab also found that 36 cellphones belonging to Al Jazeera journalists had been hacked using Pegasus technology. This was likely done by hackers working for governments in the Middle East. In 2019, WhatsApp sued NSO, and claimed Pegasus was used to hack users of the WhatsApp encrypted chat service.