The Israeli firm NSO Group's Pegasus Spyware is being used to target journalists, activists, and government officials.

 A worldwide media consortium study based on stolen targeting data adds to proof that military-grade software from Israel-based NSO Group, the world's most infamous hacker-for-hire organisation, is being used to spy on journalists, human rights activists, and political dissidents.

Journalists were able to identify more than 1,000 persons in 50 countries from a list of more than 50,000 mobile numbers obtained by the Paris-based media NGO Forbidden Stories and the human rights organisation Amnesty International and shared with 16 news organisations.

According to The Washington Post, a consortium member, they include 189 journalists, more than 600 lawmakers and government officials, at least 65 corporate leaders, 85 human rights advocates, and numerous heads of state. The Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, and The Financial Times are among the publications represented by the journalists.

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Amnesty International also reported that its forensic researchers had determined that NSO Group's flagship Pegasus spyware had been successfully installed on the phone of Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi's fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, just four days after he was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018. The business has already been linked to different forms of espionage on Khashoggi.

In an emailed answer to AP queries, NSO Group denied ever keeping a "list of possible, previous, or present targets." It termed the Forbidden Stories study "full of incorrect assumptions and uncorroborated ideas" in a second statement.

The business maintained its assertions that it only sells to "vetted government agencies" for use against terrorists and big criminals and that it has no access to the data of its clients. Critics have called those assertions deceptive, and have given proof that the NSO is directly in charge of the high-tech surveillance. They claim that the continuous misuse of Pegasus spyware demonstrates the private worldwide surveillance industry's near total absence of oversight.

The source of the leak, as well as how it was verified, were not revealed. While the inclusion of a phone number in the data does not imply an effort to hack a device, the consortium stated that it felt the data suggested possible targets of NSO's government clients. According to the Post, there are 37 compromised devices on the list. Another consortium member, The Guardian, stated that Amnesty International discovered signs of Pegasus infections on the smartphones of 15 journalists who allowed their phones to be checked after learning their phone number was among the stolen data.

The majority of the numbers on the list, 15,000, were for Mexican phones, with a sizable portion in the Middle East. The malware developed by NSO Group has been linked to targeted monitoring, mostly in the Middle East and Mexico. Saudi Arabia is said to be one of NSO's clients. Phones from France, Hungary, India, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan were also on the list.

“The number of journalists identified as targets demonstrates graphically how Pegasus is used to intimidate critical media. It is about dominating the public narrative, avoiding examination, and silencing any dissident voice,” Amnesty International's secretary-general, Agnes Callamard, was reported as saying.

In one example detailed by The Guardian, Mexican writer Cecilio Pineda Birto was killed in 2017 just weeks after his mobile phone information was released.

Lauren Easton, AP's director of media relations, said the firm is "very disturbed to hear that two AP journalists, as well as journalists from numerous other organisations," are among the 1,000 possible Pegasus targets. She stated that the AP was checking to see if the malware had infiltrated the devices of its two employees.

The conclusions of the collaboration are based on significant study by cybersecurity researchers, notably from the University of Toronto-based watchdog Citizen Lab. Researchers identified hundreds of Al-Jazeera journalists and executives, New York Times Beirut bureau director Ben Hubbard, Moroccan journalist and activist Omar Radi, and famous Mexican anti-corruption reporter Carmen Aristegui as NSO targets beginning in 2016. According to the Post, her phone number appeared on the list. The list included Hubbard and Azam Ahmed, the Times' former Mexico City bureau chief.

According to the Guardian, two Hungarian investigative journalists, Andras Szabo and Szabolcs Panyi, were among the journalists whose phones were successfully infected with Pegasus.

Proponents of a soda tax, opposition politicians, human rights activists probing a mass disappearance, and the widow of a dead journalist are among the more than two dozen previously recorded Mexican targets. In the Middle East, the victims have primarily been journalists and dissidents who have been reportedly targeted by the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The consortium's "Pegasus Project" data bolsters claims that not just autocratic countries but even democratic nations, such as India and Mexico, have utilised NSO Group's Pegasus malware for political purposes. Its members, which include the French newspaper Le Monde and the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, have promised a series of pieces based on the leak.

Pegasus infiltrates phones to collect personal and location data and secretly manipulate the microphones and cameras. In the case of journalists, this allows hackers to listen in on their conversations with sources.

The application is meant to avoid detection and conceal its activities. Researchers claim that NSO Group's tactics for infecting its victims have become so sophisticated that it can now do it without any user involvement, a so-called "zero-click" option.

WhatsApp and its parent firm Facebook sued NSO Group in US federal court in San Francisco in 2019, accusing it of exploiting a vulnerability in the popular encrypted messaging app to target 1,400 users only through missed calls. The claims are denied by NSO Group.

The Israeli firm was sued the previous year in both Israel and Cyprus, both of which it sells items. Al-Jazeera journalists, as well as other Qatari, Mexican, and Saudi journalists and activists, are among those who claim the company's malware was used to hack them.

Several of the lawsuits rely primarily on information supplied to Abdullah Al-Athbah, the editor of the Qatari daily Al-Arab and one of the claimed victims. The video appears to show UAE officials debating whether to hack into the phones of prominent people in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, including members of the Qatari royal family.

NSO Group does not reveal its clients, but claims to offer its technology to Israeli-approved nations to assist them in targeting terrorists and breaking up paedophile organisations, as well as sex and drug trafficking rings. It maintains that their software has saved hundreds of lives and denies that it had anything to do with Khashoggi's murder.

NSO Group also denies involvement in complex undercover operations exposed by The Associated Press in 2019, in which shadowy agents targeted NSO opponents, including a Citizen Lab researcher, in an attempt to discredit them.

Last year, an Israeli court dismissed an Amnesty International complaint attempting to revoke NSO's export licence due to a lack of evidence.

NSO Group is far from the only commercial spyware vendor. But its behaviour has gotten the most attention, and opponents say for good reason.

It issued its first transparency report last month, claiming that it had rejected “more over $300 million (approximately Rs. 2,240 crores) in sales possibilities as a result of its human rights assessment processes.” Eva Galperin, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's director of cybersecurity and a vocal critic, tweeted: "If this report was printed, it would not be worth the paper it was printed on."

The NSO Organization's actions are catalogued by country and target on a new, interactive online data platform built by the group Forensic Architecture with backing from Citizen Lab and Amnesty International. The organisation collaborated with director Laura Poitras, widely known for her 2014 documentary "Citizenfour" on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who provides video narrations.

“Stop what you're doing and read this,” Snowden said on Twitter on Sunday, referring to the consortium's conclusions. “This leak will be the storey of the year.”

Novalpina Capital, a private equity firm based in the United Kingdom, has had a controlling share in NSO Group since 2019. Earlier this year, Israeli media claimed that the business was thinking about going public, most likely on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

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