New York: Military-grade software of Israeli surveillance company NSO Group allegedly targeted Activists, politicians and journalists across the world in a surveillance operation using ‘Pegasus’ – only available to governments, several media reports suggested.
The phones appeared on a list of more than 50,000 numbers that are concentrated in countries known to engage in surveillance of their citizens and also known to have been clients of the Israeli firm, NSO Group, a worldwide leader in the growing and largely unregulated private spyware industry, the investigation found.
The list does not identify who put the numbers on it, or why, and it is unknown how many of the phones were targeted or surveilled. But forensic analysis of the 37 smartphones shows that many display a tight correlation between time stamps associated with a number on the list and the initiation of surveillance, in some cases as brief as a few seconds.
Numbers on the list belonged to heads of state and prime ministers, members of Arab royal families, diplomats and politicians, as well as activists and business executives.
The list also included journalists for media organisations around the world including Agence France-Presse, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The New York Times, Al Jazeera, France 24, Radio Free Europe, Mediapart, El País, the Associated Press, Le Monde, Bloomberg, the Economist, Reuters and Voice of America, reports said.
