One More VIctim Of Pegasus Spyware, This Time British Officials Become Targets

Citizen Lab which discovered the malicious spyware and has alerted UK officials. (photo: doc. poxabay)

JAKARTA - Pegasus spyware belonging to the Israeli company, NSO Group has been recovered and is targeting British officials working abroad.

Cybersecurity researchers from Citizen Lab, who discovered the malicious spyware, have warned British officials from 10 Downing Street and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that their endpoints are being targeted by spyware.

The report was found to have occurred in 2020 and 2021, most likely the British official was working abroad, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). According to reports, their device was infected by the Pegasus spyware, a type of malware developed and sold by the NSO Group.

The NSO Group is an Israel-based technology company known for selling surveillance tools to governments around the world.

The company was criticized for its frequent use against politicians, journalists, and civil rights activists. Several western countries have banned companies from their jurisdiction, and banned the use of their tools altogether.

Even so, the NSO Group again denied everything, claiming that such an attack was unlikely.

"The information submitted regarding this allegation is, again, false and cannot be attributed to NSO products for technological and contractual reasons," said a spokesperson for the NSO Group as quoted by TechRadar, Wednesday, April 20.

The company claims to continue to be targeted by a number of politically motivated advocacy organizations, such as Citizens Labs and Amnesty, for producing inaccurate and unsubstantiated reports based on unclear and incomplete information.

"We have repeatedly cooperated with government investigations, where credible allegations are warranted," said a spokesperson for the NSO Group.

For your information, Citizen Lab came across this finding while investigating a comprehensive spy case of a Catalan politician. It is alleged that 65 officials from northern Spain are being spied on, including members of the European Parliament, the Catalan president, legislators, legal experts, and members of civil society organizations.

The researchers tested a number of official cellphones, including those of the prime minister, but it was not clear if any of the data had been stolen.

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