Heads of State and Hundreds of Journalists Targeted by Israeli Spyware

The use of spyware developed by the Israeli surveillance group NSO has sparked political furore after allegations emerged that it was abused by authoritarian regimes to target activists, politicians and journalists.

The tool, which allows operators to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activates microphones, was found to have been used against figures including the Mexican President, senior Indian politicians, and American political activists. 

The ‘Pegasus’ software, which the company insists is sold only to carefully vetted government clients for use against criminals and terrorists, was found to have been employed against at least 50,000 individual phone numbers following a data leak accessed by the Paris-based nonprofit Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International and shared to The Guardian and 16 other media organisations. 

As outlined by the media consortium including The Guardian, the software was found to have targeted politicians and heads of state, business executives, activists, and several Arab royal family members. More than 180 journalists were also found to be on the list, from organisations including CNN, the New York Times and Al Jazeera. Additionally, the software also targeted figures including:

So far, the NSO Group has denied any wrongdoing and labelled the revelations a “false report full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories” while maintaining that “human rights are more important to us than money.” The cybersecurity company, headquartered in the Israeli cyber hub of Herzliya near Tel Aviv, was founded in 2010 by entrepreneurs Omri Lavie, originally a business student, and Shalev Hulio, who studied law but served as a major in the Israeli military search and rescue unit.