Riyaz Patel
A simple call on WhatsApp is enough to install spyware on your phone and have access to all your conversations and data. Fiction? No, reality!
The software, called Pegasus, is manufactured by the Israeli company NSO Group and sold to governments to “prevent criminal and terrorist acts,” so the company says.
However, this software has been used to target at least a hundred human rights defenders around the world, WhatsApp revealed last week.
Manon Schick, director of Amnesty International (AI) Switzerland says its research has found that this spyware has been used by governments to attack civil society activists, including at least 24 human rights defenders, journalists and parliamentarians in Mexico, as well as Ahmed Mansoor, the recipient of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders who was sentenced to ten years in prison in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
AI adds that it’s likely that this software, Pegasus, was also used by the Saudi authorities to monitor journalist Jamal Khashoggi prior to his assassination.
Amnesty International itself was targeted, the rights group said, with one of its employees receiving a text message containing a link that, if activated, secretly installed the Pegasus software allowing it to take control of his phone.
The Tel Aviv District Court in Israel is scheduled to consider a lawsuit by members of Amnesty International Thursday, Shick said.
“Our goal is clear,” she said, adding that “the surest way to prevent NSO spyware from getting into the hands of governments planning to misuse it is if the Israeli Ministry of Defense revokes the government’s export license.”
AI said IT companies must be held responsible when their products are used to violate fundamental rights.
Ahead of the hearing, NSO said it has taken steps to avoid that its tools serve to silence activists or journalists.
“This late announcement leaves us skeptical,” Shick countered, as “In the past, NSO has repeatedly tried to avoid accountability for its role in these flagrant violations.”
Meanwhile, London-based investigative journalist Asa Winstanley says it’s concerning recent reports which reveal that a cyber-spying company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been hiring former Israeli intelligence officers.
He says DarkMatter, which has intimate links with the UAE government, has been paying exorbitant sums in an effort to lure these spooks away from Israel, with pay packets said to amount to as much as a million dollars each.
“When the spotlight is thrown on them, such “cybersecurity” firms often disclaim responsibility for the malign results of their work. They frequently claim to be involved only in legitimate security measures, and only helping recognised governments,” he says.
The reality, though, is very different, Winstanley adds.
“Such cyber-spying efforts, led by Israelis and often sold to the highest bidder, are in fact used to snoop on and sabotage the work of human rights activists, journalists and lawyers,” he said, echoing the views expressed by AI.
Winstanley said Pegasus is capable of stealing a vast amount of data from smartphones.
This includes passwords, locations, recordings, screenshots, email, text messages and photographs.
WhatsApp (which is owned by Facebook) announced this week that it is suing NSO Group for having targeted its users and its computer systems.
The massive lawsuit was lodged in California. WhatsApp first announced earlier this year that it had discovered (and fixed) the vulnerability in its software which NSO had exploited for its espionage activities.
