The Pegasus Project is an international
investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years rese ...
initiative that revealed governments'
espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangibl ...
on journalists,
opposition
Opposition may refer to:
Arts and media
* ''Opposition'' (Altars EP), 2011 EP by Christian metalcore band Altars
* The Opposition (band), a London post-punk band
* ''The Opposition with Jordan Klepper'', a late-night television series on Comed ...
politicians,
activists, business people and others using the private
Pegasus
Pegasus ( grc-gre, Πήγασος, Pḗgasos; la, Pegasus, Pegasos) is one of the best known creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine stallion usually depicted as pure white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as hor ...
spyware
Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is software with malicious behaviour that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user—for example, by violating their privac ...
developed by the
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
i technology and
cyber-arms company NSO Group
NSO Group Technologies (NSO standing for Niv, Shalev and Omri, the names of the company's founders) is an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance o ...
. Pegasus is ostensibly marketed for surveillance of "serious crimes and terrorism". In 2020, a target list of 50,000 phone numbers leaked to
Forbidden Stories
Forbidden Stories is a non-profit organization with the mission "to continue and publish the work of other journalists facing threats, prison, or murder." To achieve this, it allows journalists to send their work to Forbidden Stories, so other jou ...
, and an analysis revealed the list contained the numbers of leading opposition politicians, human rights activists, journalists, lawyers and other political dissidents.
A small number of phones that were inspected by
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
's cybersecurity team revealed forensic evidence of the Pegasus spyware, a
zero-click Trojan virus
In computing, a Trojan horse is any malware that misleads users of its true intent. The term is derived from the Ancient Greek story of the deceptive Trojan Horse that led to the fall of the city of Troy.
Trojans generally spread by some form ...
developed by NSO Group.
This malware provides the
attacker full access to the targeted smartphone, its data, images, photographs and conversations as well as camera, microphone and
geolocation. This information was passed along to 17 media organisations under "The Pegasus Project" umbrella name. Reports started to be published by member organisations on 18 July 2021, revealing notable non-criminal targets and analysing the practice as a threat to
freedom of the press
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic News media, media, especially publication, published materials, should be conside ...
,
freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
, dissidents and
democratic opposition. On 20 July, 14
heads of state were revealed as former targets of Pegasus malware. Various parties called for further investigation of the abuses and a limitation on trading such repressive malware, among them the newsrooms involved, the
Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an American independent non-profit, non-governmental organization, based in New York City, New York, with correspondents around the world. CPJ promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journa ...
, the
International Press Institute, and
Edward Snowden
Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...
.
Software
The Pegasus spyware was developed by the Israeli cyberarms company
NSO Group
NSO Group Technologies (NSO standing for Niv, Shalev and Omri, the names of the company's founders) is an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance o ...
. It can be covertly installed on
mobile phone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
s (and other devices) running most
versions of
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
and
Android
Android may refer to:
Science and technology
* Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system
** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
. The spyware is named after the mythical winged horse
Pegasus
Pegasus ( grc-gre, Πήγασος, Pḗgasos; la, Pegasus, Pegasos) is one of the best known creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine stallion usually depicted as pure white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as hor ...
—it is a
Trojan horse
The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending before the war is concluded, ...
that can be sent "flying through the air" to infect phones. Usages of the Pegasus spyware have been monitored for years. Amnesty has argued that the digital invasion is correlated with real-life consequences for spied targets, via psychological or physical damages.
The NSO Group exports are overseen by the
Israeli Ministry of Defense
The Ministry of Defense ( he, מִשְׂרַד הַבִּטָּחוֹן, Misrad HaBitahon, Ministry of Security, acronym: he, משהב"ט) of the government of Israel, is the governmental department responsible for defending the State of Isra ...
's Defense Exports Control Agency (DECA).
Investigation
Origins and members
In 2020, a list of over 50,000 phone numbers believed to belong to individuals identified as "people of interest" by clients of the Israeli
cyberarms firm NSO Group was leaked to
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
and
Forbidden Stories
Forbidden Stories is a non-profit organization with the mission "to continue and publish the work of other journalists facing threats, prison, or murder." To achieve this, it allows journalists to send their work to Forbidden Stories, so other jou ...
, a media nonprofit organisation based in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, France.
This information was passed along to 17 media organisations under the umbrella name "The Pegasus Project". Over several months, over 80 journalists from ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' (United Kingdom), ''
Le Monde
''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'' and
Radio France (France), ''
Die Zeit
''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles.
History
The ...
'', ''
Süddeutsche Zeitung
The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of SZ is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and social-democrat.
History ...
'',
WDR and
NDR
NDR may refer to:
Computing
* Non delivery report, a return email message to a sender indicating failed message delivery
* Network Data Representation, an implementation of the OSI model presentation layer
Science and technology
* Negative differ ...
(Germany), ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' and ''
Frontline
Front line refers to the forward-most forces on a battlefield.
Front line, front lines or variants may also refer to:
Books and publications
* ''Front Lines'' (novel), young adult historical novel by American author Michael Grant
* ''Frontlines ...
'' (United States), ''
Haaretz
''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner f ...
'' (Israel), ''
Aristegui Noticias
María del Carmen Aristegui Flores (; born January 18, 1964) is a Mexican journalist and anchorwoman. She is widely regarded as one of Mexico's leading journalists and opinion leaders, and is best known for her critical investigations of the Mex ...
'' and ''
Proceso'' (Mexico), ''
Knack
Knack or The Knack may refer to:
Music and entertainment
* The Knack, an American pop-rock band famous for their hit "My Sharona"
* The Knack (1960s US band), an American garage rock band active in the 1960s
* The Knack (UK band), a British freakb ...
'' and ''
Le Soir'' (Belgium), ''
The Wire'' (India), ''Daraj'' (Syria), Direkt36 (Hungary),
and
OCCRP
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is a global network of investigative journalists with staff on six continents. It was founded in 2006 and specializes in organized crime and corruption. It publishes its stories through ...
investigated the spying abuses.
Investigative methodology
The leaked list of targeted
phone numbers provides an indication of being a "person of interest" and a first indication of possible hacking, to be confirmed via direct forensic examination of the phone. According to Amnesty, "The
Citizen Lab
The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, Canada. It was founded by Ronald Deibert in 2001. The laboratory studies information controls that impact the openness ...
at the University of Toronto independently peer-reviewed a draft of their forensic methodology outlined in ''Forensic Methodology Report: How to catch NSO Group's Pegasus''.
Amnesty also published various tools or data from this investigation, including a Mobile Verification Toolkit (MVT)
and a
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
repository listing indicators of NSO/Pegasus compromised devices.
Some emerging unverified online services claim to be able to assess an infection by Pegasus, but their usage is discouraged as possible scams themselves.
Amnesty and Forbidden Stories received numerous queries for checking devices but were not able to satisfy the demand for assistance.
Findings
The investigation suggested that Pegasus continued to be widely used by authoritarian governments to spy on human rights activists, journalists and lawyers worldwide, although NSO claims that it is only intended for use against criminals and terrorists.
A French journalist noted that "in a matter of cyber-surveillance, we observe that abuse is ''de facto'' the rule".
Forbidden Stories
Forbidden Stories is a non-profit organization with the mission "to continue and publish the work of other journalists facing threats, prison, or murder." To achieve this, it allows journalists to send their work to Forbidden Stories, so other jou ...
argues the Pegasus software and its usages ''de facto'' constitute a global weapon to silence journalists.
Forensic Architecture
Forensic Architecture is a multidisciplinary research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London that uses architectural techniques and technologies to investigate cases of state violence and violations of human rights around the world. The ...
and the Pegasus Project lead a data analysis and built a data visualisation plotting attempt hacking of dissidents together with real-life intimidations, threats or violence. They have argued that Pegasus has become a key tool for states to repress their own people.
Regions and targets
Targets include known
criminal
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...
s as well as
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
defenders, political opponents,
lawyer
A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...
s,
diplomat
A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...
s, heads of state and nearly 200 journalists from 24 countries. ''The Guardian'' mentioned 38 journalists in Morocco, 48 journalists in Azerbaijan, 12 journalists in the United Arab Emirates and 38 journalists in India as having been targeted.
Some of the targets whose names have been revealed are listed below; the list is non-exhaustive.
Heads of state and government
According to an analysis by the German newspaper ''
Die Zeit
''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles.
History
The ...
'' and others, the following incumbent and former heads of state and government have been targeted,
implying possible full access to their mobile phones' data:
*
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, former President of Algeria
*
Noureddine Bedoui
Noureddine Bedoui ( ar, نور الدين بدوي; born 22 December 1959) is an Algerian politician. He was Prime Minister of Algeria
The prime minister of Algeria is the head of government of Algeria. Aymen Benabderrahmane has been t ...
, former Prime Minister of Algeria
*
Mostafa Madbouly
Mostafa Kamal Madbouly ( ar, مصطفى كمال مدبولي; born 28 April 1966) is the Prime Minister of Egypt, serving since 2018. He was appointed by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to succeed Sherif Ismail following his government's resignat ...
, Prime Minister of Egypt
*
Charles Michel, former Prime Minister of Belgium and current
President of the European Council
The president of the European Council is the person presiding over and driving forward the work of the European Council on the world stage. This institution comprises the college of heads of state or government of EU member states as well as t ...
*
Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France since 2017. ''Ex officio'', he is also one of the two Co-Princes of Andorra. Prior to his presidency, Macron served as Minister of Econ ...
, President of France
*
Édouard Philippe, former Prime Minister of France
** Édith Chabre, wife of Édouard Philippe
** Most French ministers
** Numerous French diplomats
*
Barham Salih, President of Iraq
*
Bakhytzhan Sagintayev, former Prime Minister of Kazakhstan
*
Saad Hariri, Prime Minister of Lebanon
*
Mohammed VI Muhammad VI may refer to:
* Muhammad Imaaduddeen VI (1868–1932), sultan of the Maldives from 1893 to 1902
* Mehmed VI (1861–1926), sultan of Ottoman Empire, from 1918 to 1922
* Mohammed VI of Morocco
Mohammed VI ( ar, محمد السادس ...
, King of Morocco
*
Saadeddine Othmani, Prime Minister of Morocco
*
Imran Khan
Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi ( ur}; born 5 October 1952) is a Pakistani politician and former Cricket captain who served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan from August 2018 to until April 2022, when he was ousted through a no-confidenc ...
, Prime Minister of Pakistan
*
Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa
*
Ruhakana Rugunda
Ruhakana Rugunda (born 7 November 1947) is a Ugandan physician and politician who had been Prime Minister of Uganda from 2014 to 2021. He held a long series of cabinet posts under President Yoweri Museveni beginning in 1986. He served as Uganda's ...
, former Prime Minister of Uganda
*
Ahmed Obeid bin Daghr, former Prime Minister of Yemen
Azerbaijan
*Fatima Movlamli, an Azerbaijani civil society activist and journalist opposed to local authoritarian government. Intimate photographs of her were leaked on
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
in 2019 when she was only 18.
Hungary
Used against opposition journalists, opposition leaders and critics.
* Szabolcs Panyi, a Hungarian investigative journalist for , hacked in 2019.
Panyi joined the Pegasus Project investigation.
* András Szabó, a Hungarian investigative journalist.
* Dávid Dercsényi, a Hungarian investigative journalist (''
HVG'').
*
György Gémesi
György Gémesi (born 3 January 1956) is a Hungarian doctor and politician. He is the current Mayor of Gödöllő since 1990 and the President of New Start Party (''Új Kezdet''). Between 1998 and 2006 was Member of the National Parliament of ...
, a right-wing opposition politician, mayor of
Gödöllő
Gödöllő (; german: Getterle; sk, Jedľovo) is a town in Pest County, Budapest metropolitan area, Hungary, about northeast from the outskirts of Budapest. Its population is 34,396 according to the 2010 census and is growing rapidly. It can ...
and president of the Alliance of Hungarian Local-Governments.
* , president of the Hungarian Bar Association, and nine other lawyers.
* , a businessman and owner of Central Media Group, which publish opposition press products (24.hu).
*
Attila Chikán
Attila Chikán (born 4 April 1944, in Budapest) is a Hungarian economist, university professor, Full Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. His research areas are nation ...
, a former economy minister in the first cabinet of
Viktor Orbán
Viktor Mihály Orbán (; born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian politician who has served as prime minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has presided over Fidesz since 1993, with a brief break between 20 ...
, currently a vocal critic of Orbán's politics.
India
![Stan Swamy (2010)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Stan_Swamy_%282010%29.jpg)
Used against opposition leaders, union ministers, journalists, administrators such as
Election Commissioner and heads of the
Central Bureau of Investigation
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the premier investigating agency of India. It operates under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. Originally set up to investigate bribery and governmen ...
(CBI) and minority leaders.
*
Rahul Gandhi, an Indian politician and main rival of Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi
Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...
, was targeted on two of his cellphones.
He would go on to claim that "all
isphones are tapped".
**Five close friends and other
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...
party officials were in the leaked list of potential targets.
*
Prashant Kishor
Prashant Kishor, colloquially known as PK, is an Indian political strategist and tactician. A public health expert by training, who worked with the United Nations for eight years before venturing into Indian politics and working as a political ...
, a political strategist and
tactician
A tactic is a conceptual action or short series of actions with the aim of achieving a short-term goal. This action can be implemented as one or more specific tasks. The term is commonly used in business, protest and military contexts, as well a ...
, who is linked with several of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rivals, was also targeted. Some opposition politicians such as
Mamata Banerjee
Mamata Banerjee (; born 5 January 1955) is an Indian politician who is serving as the eighth and current List of chief ministers of West Bengal, chief minister of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of West Bengal since 20 ...
even claimed that Pegasus was used to keep track of the meetings between the two.
*
Ashok Lavasa
Ashok Lavasa ( IAST: ) (born 21 October 1957) is a retired 1980 batch Indian Administrative Service officer of Haryana cadre and was one of the two Election Commissioners of India. He has also served as the Finance Secretary of India, Enviro ...
, an ex-Election Commissioner of India who flagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi's poll code violation in the
2019 Indian general election
General elections were held in India in seven phases from 11 April to 19 May 2019 to elect the members of the 17th Lok Sabha. Votes were counted and the result was declared on 23 May. Around 912 million people were eligible to vote, and voter ...
was targeted.
*
Alok Verma
Alok Kumar Verma (born 14 July 1957) is a former Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation in India, who also served as Commissioner of Delhi Police and Director General of Tihar Jail. A 1979 batch IPS officer of the Arunachal Pradesh-Go ...
, who was ousted as the head of the
Central Bureau of Investigation
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the premier investigating agency of India. It operates under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. Originally set up to investigate bribery and governmen ...
(CBI) by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2018 was a target.
* Numerous Indian politicians including Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka
G. Parameshwara, as well as close aides of then Chief Minister
H. D. Kumaraswamy
Haradanahalli Deve Gowda Kumaraswamy, (born 16 December 1959) known among followers as Kumaranna (''Kumar, the elder brother''), is an Indian politician and businessman who served as the 18th Chief Minister of Karnataka from 23 May 2018 to 23 J ...
and senior Congress leader
Siddaramaiah.
*
Abhishek Banerjee, a West Bengal politician of the
All India Trinamool Congress
The All India Trinamool Congress (English: All India Grassroots Congress; AITC), colloquially the Trinamool Congress ( TMC) is an Indian political party which is predominantly active in West Bengal. The party is led by Mamata Banerjee, the cur ...
, and the nephew of incumbent Chief Minister of West Bengal
Mamata Banerjee
Mamata Banerjee (; born 5 January 1955) is an Indian politician who is serving as the eighth and current List of chief ministers of West Bengal, chief minister of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of West Bengal since 20 ...
.
*
Siddharth Varadarajan
Siddharth Varadarajan (born 1965) is a journalist and editor in India. He was a former editor of the English language national daily ''The Hindu'', and is one of the founding editors of the Indian digital news portal ''The Wire'', along with ...
, a New Delhi–based, American investigative journalist and founder of ''
The Wire''. Varadarajan joined the Pegasus Project investigation.
*
Umar Khalid
Umar Khalid (born Syed Umar Khalid) is an Indian student activist, former research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, former leader of Democratic Students' Union (DSU) in JNU. He was allegedly involved in the Jawaharlal Nehru University ...
, a left-wing student activist and leader of the Democratic Students' Union, was added to the list in late 2018, then charged with
sedition
Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, estab ...
. He was arrested in September 2020 for organising the
Delhi riots; the provided evidence was taken from his phone. He is currently in jail awaiting trial.
*
Stan Swamy
Stanislaus Lourduswamy, SJ (26 April 1937 – 5 July 2021), popularly known as Stan Swamy, was an Indian Catholic priest, a member of the Jesuit order, and a tribal rights activist for several decades. Swamy was the oldest person to be accuse ...
, an Indian Jesuit father and activist. Swamy died on 5 July 2021 at the age of 84 after contracting
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
in prison.
** Collaborators Hany Babu,
Shoma Sen
Shoma Sen is a women's rights activist and assistant professor and was head of the English literature department of the Nagpur University. On 8 June 2018, she was arrested by the Pune Police for her alleged involvement in the Bhima Koregaon riot ...
and
Rona Wilson
Rona Wilson is an activist, researcher and the public relations secretary of the Committee for Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP). He has worked with people accused in terrorism cases, including those booked under the Unlawful Activities (Pr ...
were also in the project's list of alleged targets.
*
Ashwini Vaishnaw,
Minister of Electronics and Information Technology who assumed office less than 3 weeks before the investigation was revealed.
* The inner circle to the 14th Dalai Lama
Tenzin Gyatso
The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...
, the 17th Karmapa
Ogyen Trinley Dorje
Ogyen Trinley Dorje (, ; born 26 June 1985), also written as Urgyen Trinley Dorje () is a claimant to the title of 17th Karmapa.
The Karmapa is head of the Karma Kagyu school, one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Ogyen Trinley Dor ...
and other Tibetan figures, including:
**
Tempa Tsering, the Dalai Lama's envoy to Delhi
** Tenzin Taklha, the Dalai Lama's senior aide
** Chhimey Rigzen, the Dalai Lama's senior aide
**
Lobsang Tenzin
Lobsang Tenzin, better known by the titles Professor Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche (zam gdong rin po che) and to Tibetans as the 5th Samdhong Rinpoche (born 5 November 1937), is a Tibetan Buddhist monk and politician who served as the Prime Min ...
, the 5th
Samdhong Rinpoche
() is a Tibetan religious title. ''Rinpoche
Rinpoche, also spelled Rimboche and Rinboku (), is an honorific term used in the Tibetan language. It literally means "precious one", and may refer to a person, place, or thing—like the words "gem" ...
, who is responsible for the selection of the Dalai Lama's successor
**
Lobsang Sangay
Lobsang Sangay (, ; born 5 September 1968) is a Tibetan-American politician who was Kalon Tripa of the Tibetan Administration from 2011 to 2012, and Sikyong of the Central Tibetan Administration from 2012 to 2021.
The Tibetan Administration wa ...
, former president of the Tibetan government-in-exile
**
Penpa Tsering
Penpa Tsering () (born 1967) is a Tibetan politician. He is the second democratically elected Sikyong of the Central Tibetan Administration. He succeeded the last Sikyong Lobsang Sangay on 27 May 2021. Penpa Tsering was the speaker of the Parliam ...
, president of the Tibetan government-in-exile
Italy
*
Romano Prodi
Romano Antonio Prodi (; born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, senior civil servant, and business executive who served as the tenth president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Prim ...
, former
Prime Minister of Italy
The Prime Minister of Italy, officially the President of the Council of Ministers ( it, link=no, Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri), is the head of government of the Italian Republic. The office of president of the Council of Ministers is ...
and former
President of the European Commission
The president of the European Commission is the head of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU). The President of the Commission leads a Cabinet of Commissioners, referred to as the College, collectively account ...
, was spied on while he was working as the UN Special Envoy to Sahel.
Mexico
Used against anti-corruption journalists, opposition leaders and a judge.
*Cecilio Pineda Birto (died 2 March 2017), a Mexican investigative and anti-corruption journalist. His phone was added as a Pegasus target just weeks before his assassination.
*, a Mexican judge, former president of the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR or IACtHR) is an international court based in San José, Costa Rica. Together with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, it was formed by the American Convention on Human Rights, a huma ...
.
*
Alejandro Solalinde
Alejandro Solalinde Guerra (born March 19, 1945) is a Mexican Catholic priest and human rights champion. He is the coordinator of the South Pacific Human Mobility Ministry of the Mexican Bishopric and director of ''Hermanos en el Camino'', a s ...
, a Catholic priest and champion of migrants' rights. Believed to be targeted due to his support to opposition politicians.
Morocco
Used against opposition,
Western Sahara
Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the r ...
–friendly journalists in Morocco and France, and more than 6,000
Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, relig ...
n politicians, high-ranking military officials, heads of intelligence, civil servants, diplomats and activists.
*
Edwy Plenel, a French journalist, co-founder and publishing editor at opposition newsroom ''
Mediapart'', hacked in 2019 by Morocco.
*, a French journalist also at ''Mediapart'', hacked in 2020 by Morocco.
*, a Spanish journalist specialising in the
Maghreb
The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...
. He reported that he was hacked by the Moroccan government after learning that in June a Moroccan newspaper "picked up two WhatsApp conversations he had had with senior officials of the Spanish administration".
*
Ahmed Gaid Salah, former
Chief of Staff
The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supporti ...
of the
*
Ali Haddad, Algerian businessman and supporter of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika
*
Abdelkader Messahel, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Algeria
Poland
In July 2017, Prime Minister
Beata Szydło agreed with
Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (; ; born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who served as the ninth prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021. He is currently serving as Leader of the Opposition and Chairman of ...
to buy Pegasus licenses. Michał Woś,
deputy minister of justice, requested a parliamentary committee to divert funds from a ministry-run fund to "combat crime."
Once approved, the
Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA) purchased the licenses for PLN 33.4 million.
The transaction with NSO Group was camouflaged with unrelated invoices.
The contract for 40 licenses to be used over three years was mediated by Matic, a company established by former
Militia
A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...
and
Security Service associates.
The spyware was first deployed in November 2017.
In 2018, Citizen Lab suspected that an operator codenamed "ORZELBIALY" (
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
for "white eagle," a reference for the
coat of arms of Poland) was spreading Pegasus through mobile network operators. In 2020, ''
Rzeczpospolita
() is the official name of Poland and a traditional name for some of its predecessor states. It is a compound of "thing, matter" and "common", a calque of Latin ''rés pública'' ( "thing" + "public, common"), i.e. ''republic'', in Engli ...
'' reported that the bulk of evidence in a corruption case against former
Civic Platform politician
Sławomir Nowak
Sławomir Ryszard Nowak (born 11 December 1974 in Gdańsk) is a Polish politician and a state official in Ukraine. He was elected to the Sejm on 25 September 2005, getting 9,061 votes in 25 Gdańsk district as a candidate from the Civic Platform ...
was obtained using Pegasus. The CBA denied ever buying the license, still the government assured it had court permission.
In December 2021, Citizen Lab announced to have found multiple hacks into phones of prominent opposition figures during the
2019 parliamentary elections that the right-wing populist party
Law and Justice
Law and Justice ( pl, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość , PiS) is a right-wing populist and national-conservative political party in Poland. Its chairman is Jarosław Kaczyński.
It was founded in 2001 by Jarosław and Lech Kaczyński as a direct su ...
(PiS) of
Jarosław Kaczyński
Jarosław Aleksander Kaczyński (; born 18 June 1949) is a Polish politician who is currently serving as leader of the Law and Justice party (known by its Polish acronym PiS), which he co-founded in 2001 with his twin brother, Lech Kaczyński, w ...
won by a slim margin, which lead to a further erosion of judicial independence and press freedom.
As of January 25, 2022, the reported victims include:
*
Roman Giertych, a lawyer representing top opposition politicians, and the deputy prime minister in
2006–2007 Kaczyński's Cabinet,
* Ewa Wrzosek, a prosecutor who challenged the PiS government's attempts to purge the judiciary,
*
Krzysztof Brejza
Krzysztof Brejza (born 16 May 1983 in Bydgoszcz, Poland) is a Polish politician, currently serving as Member of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, representing the Bydgoszcz district. Between 2005 and 2006 he was a member of the Kuyavian-Pomera ...
, an attorney and at the time, a Civic Platform MP who ran the
Civic Coalition campaign, and won his
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
seat. The hack against Brejza was later confirmed by Amnesty International.
* , a farmer and leader of the social movement
Agrounia,
* Tomasz Szwejgiert, a journalist and alleged former associate of the CBA, hacked while co-authoring a book about
Mariusz Kaminski, head of the CBA.
*
Adam Hofman
Adam Hofman (born 23 May 1980) is a Polish public relations professional and a former politician. He was elected to the Sejm on 25 September 2005, getting 10,994 votes in 37 Konin district, running from the Law and Justice party list. He was the s ...
, former PiS spokesman,
*
Dawid Jackiewicz, former PiS
treasury minister in the
Cabinet of Beata Szydło,
* , former PiS MP,
* , former head of the PiS
cabinet
Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to:
Furniture
* Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers
* Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets
* Filing ...
and former spokesman of the
Ministry of National Defence
{{unsourced, date=February 2021
A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...
,
* Katarzyna Kaczmarek, wife of (referred to as "agent Tomek"), former policeman and former CBA officer, later a PiS MP.
On February 7, 2022, the
Supreme Audit Office (NIK) revealed that between 2020-2021, 544 of its employees' devices were under surveillance in over 7,300 attacks. According to NIK experts, three of the phones could be infected with Pegasus.
Saudi Arabia
![Loujain Alhathloul](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Loujain_Alhathloul.jpg)
Used against an opposition journalist and a women's rights activist since 2018.
*
Jamal Khashoggi (died 2 October 2018), a Saudi-American investigative and opposition journalist, a contributor to ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', assassinated by Saudi operatives. Khashoggi, his wife Hanan El-Atr and phones of other people close to him have been targeted before and after
his assassination.
** , Khashoggi's partner, was infected with Pegasus with forensic evidence of the spyware found on 6, 9 and 12 October 2018, a few days after Khashoggi's assassination.
**Khashoggi's contacts
Yasin Aktay
Yasin Aktay (born 1966 in Siirt, Turkey) is a deputy chairman of the AK Party and head of the Turkish Group of Inter-Parliamentary Union, Inter-Parliamentarian Union. He is also known as one of the chief aides to the Turkish President Recep Tayyip ...
,
Yahya Assiri, Hanan El-Atr, Abdullah Khashoggi,
Madawi al-Rasheed, and
Azzam Tamimi
Azzam Tamimi (sometimes spelled Azam Tamimi; born 1955, Hebron, West Bank) is a British- Palestinian Jordanian academic and political activist affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. He is currently a freelance presenter at Alhiwar TV Channel. ...
were also targeted.
** , Turkey's Istanbul chief prosecutor in charge of the Khashoggi murder's investigation, who later charged 20 Saudi operatives, is on the list of leaked targets.
*
Loujain al-Hathloul
Loujain al-Hathloul ( ar, لجين الهذلول ''Lujjayn al-Hadhlūl''; born 31 July 1989) is a Saudi women's rights activist, a social media figure, and political prisoner. She is a graduate of the University of British Columbia. Al-Hathloul ...
, a prominent Saudi women's rights activist, selected in 2018, likely by the United Arab Emirates (an ally of Saudi Arabia), before her abduction and return to Saudi Arabia for arrest and possibly torture. She was released from prison in February 2021, but her freedom of movement is still limited.
*
Madawi al-Rasheed, a British citizen of Saudi origin and a professor of social anthropology.
United Arab Emirates
Used against human rights activists, local leaders and local nobility and Sheikh
Maktoum
Maktoum or maktoom, also known as katem, is a traditional Arabic Unpitched percussion instrument, unpitched percussion instrument. A large round bass drum, it is played while held between knees.
References
Arabic musical instruments
Hand d ...
family members. With more than 10,000 people of interest linked to Dubai, it was one of the most extensive uses of Pegasus.
The targets were mainly from the UAE and Qatar, but also included people from Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia.
In 2020,
the NSO Pegasus license was stripped from Dubai due to human rights concerns
and spying on Sheikh Maktoum family members.
*
Princess Haya bint Hussein
Princess Haya bint Hussein ( ar, الأميرة هيا بنت الحسين; born 3 May 1974) is the daughter of King Hussein of Jordan and his third wife Queen Alia, and the half-sister of King Abdullah II.
She is a graduate of the University o ...
, the ex-wife of Sheikh Maktoum of Dubai, self-exiled in London.
The list of "people of interest" includes her phone number as well as the phone number of 8 of her closest aides, advisers and friends, including personal assistant, security staffs, one of her lawyers advising her in her custody and divorce dispute with Sheikh Maktoum.
** Security firm Quest's staffs: Martin Smith, CEO; its director of investigations; Shimon Cohen, its communications adviser.
**
John Gosden, a British horse racing trainer and friend.
*Sheikha
Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum, the daughter of Sheikh Maktoum of Dubai, attempted to escape to
Goa
Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the ...
, India. From there, she hoped to travel to the United States, where she planned to seek asylum, only to be caught by Indian special forces.
Her phone number had appeared on 25 February 2018, one day after her escape, but the phone was already discarded in a café bathroom and replaced with a brand-new phone with new SIM cards.
Phones used by Latifa's friends and family were soon added to the system. It is suspected that UAE Pegasus surveillance of her friends' phones helped Dubai to track Latifa's escape, and abduct her back near Goa.
**Christian Elombo, a French soldier and friend of Latifa, and his girlfriend
**Juan Mayer, a skydiving photographer and friend
**Lynda Bouchiki, a skydiver and friend, events manager. Latifa chatted via phone with Bouchiki while fleeing.
**Sioned Taylor, a Briton skydiver and friend, maths teacher. Latifa chatted via phone with Taylor while fleeing.
**
David Haigh
David Lawrence Haigh is a British human rights lawyer and international crisis and media manager.
Haigh is the former managing director of Leeds United Football Club and Chairman of Leeds United Ladies Football Club, he was the first openly L ...
, a British national previously detained and tortured in UAE prison, human rights campaigner and lawyer campaigning to
free Latifa.
*
Alaa al-Siddiq
Alaa Al-Siddiq ( ar, آلاء الصدّيق; 18 June 1988 – 19 June 2021) was a UK-based Emirati poet and a prominent human rights activist.
Education
Born in Sharjah to an educated and religious family, Alaa received a bachelor's degree in S ...
(died 19 June 2021), an Emirati human rights activist, executive director of the human rights organisation
ALQST
ALQST or Al Qst ( ar, منظمة القسط) is a human rights organisation that documents and promotes human rights in Saudi Arabia, with a team in Saudi Arabia that researches cases and a team in London that publishes reports and news.
Aims an ...
and the daughter of Muhammad al-Siddiq, one of the UAE-94 pro-democracy
political prisoner
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...
s.
She was documenting violences by Gulf governments on prisoners.
Following the
2011 Arab Spring
The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and econom ...
, Alaa al-Siddiq was self-exiled to Qatar then the UK since 2012.
All of her family members were stripped of their UAE nationality. Following her death in a car accident in 2021 in the UK, the UAE refused her body to be taken back to the country for burial.
Citizens Lab found traces of Pegasus surveillance on her phone.
*
Ahmed Mansoor
Ahmed Mansoor Al Shehhi is an Emirati blogger, human rights and reform activist arrested in 2011 for defamation and insults to the heads of state and tried in the UAE Five trial. He was pardoned by UAE's president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahy ...
, an Emirati human rights and reformist blogger, confirmed hacked by Pegasus.
Arrested in 2011, pardoned, then arrested again in 2017 with 10 years sentences. Detained in dire conditions.
* Over 3,000 Qataris.
* European, Asian human rights activists supporting rights in the Gulf countries.
Reactions
NSO Group's response
Vetting and licence contract
NSO Group did not deny the presence of its spyware, responding to the report by stating they rigorously vetted its customers' human rights records before allowing them to use its spy tools.
It says military-grade Pegasus is only supposed to be used to prevent serious crime and terrorism. NSO stated its purchasing client governments are bidden by a signed contract and licence, agreeing to terms of uses, and contractually limited to legitimate criminal or terrorist targets.
Once sold, NSO Group says it does not know nor can see how its client governments use its spyware.
Involvement denial and deresponsibilisation
NSO Group stated: ''"NSO does not operate the systems that it sells to vetted government customers, and does not have access to the data of its customers' targets. NSO does not operate its technology, does not collect, nor possesses, nor has any access to any kind of data of its customers. Due to contractual and national security considerations, NSO cannot confirm or deny the identity of our government customers, as well as the identity of customers of which we have shut down systems."''
The CEO of NSO Group categorically claimed that the list in question is unrelated to them, the source of the allegations can not be verified as a reliable one. "This is an attempt to build something based on a crazy lack of information... There is something fundamentally wrong with this investigation."
The owner of the company that developed the Pegasus spyware categorically refutes all allegations, stating that the list of the phone numbers in question has nothing to do with the Pegasus spyware.
NSO denied "false claims" about its clients' activities, but said it would "continue to investigate all credible claims of misuse and take appropriate action".
Journalists/NGOs
Journalists around the world have expressed outrage at the use of anti-criminality tools against non-criminals, journalists, opposition representatives, and other civilians.
Edward Snowden
Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...
has called for governments to impose a global moratorium on the international spyware trade in order to avoid ubiquitous violation of privacy and associated abuses.
''
Haaretz
''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner f ...
'' argued such invasive monitoring technology is the weapon of choice for autocratic governments, allowing continuous monitoring of opponents, preventing protests from the beginning before they are organised, and discouraging sources to share information with journalists.
This technology should, therefore, be shared only with countries with independent and solid
rule of law
The rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers and leaders. The rule of law is defined in the ''Encyclopedia Britannica ...
.
The
Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an American independent non-profit, non-governmental organization, based in New York City, New York, with correspondents around the world. CPJ promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journa ...
called for a critical reform of the surveillance software industry and market.
The
International Press Institute, an international press freedom network, denounced the abuse of spying on journalists, calling formal investigations and accountability.
, an investigative journalist for
Al Jazeera Arabic
Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera M ...
, said, "
he hacking of the Al Jazeera staffers' and journalists' phones isa crime against journalism. Based on this spyware, journalists have been arrested, disappeared, or even killed. Khashoggi is just one example".
In a statement, the said they were "shocked" by the revelations and also stated: "If this is the case, it is unacceptable, outrageous and illegal, full information must be disclosed to the public immediately".
In a tweet, the
Press Club of India
Press Club of India (PCI) is an association of journalists and media professionals in New Delhi, India. Founded by Durga Das in 1957, it is the oldest organization of its kind in the country. It is led by an annually elected executive body, wh ...
(PCI) issued a statement:
This is the first time in the history of this country that all pillars of our democracy — judiciary, Parliamentarians, media, executives & ministers — have been spied upon. This is unprecedented and the PCI condemns unequivocally. The snooping has been done for ulterior motives. What is disturbing is that a foreign agency, which has nothing to do with the national interest of the country, was engaged to spy on its citizens. This breeds distrust and will invite anarchy. The Govt should come out clean on this front and clarify.
Similarly, the
Editor's Guild of India also released a statement directed against the alleged spying made by the Indian government, saying:
This act of snooping essentially conveys that journalism and political dissent are now equated with 'terror'. How can a constitutional democracy survive if governments do not make an effort to protect freedom of speech and allows surveillance with such impunity?
It asked for a
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
monitored enquiry into the matter, and further demanded that the inquiry committee should include people of impeccable credibility from different walks of life—including journalists and civil society—so that it can independently investigate the facts around the extent and intent of snooping using the services of Pegasus.
Companies
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
's cloud computing subsidiary
AWS
Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. These cloud computing web services provide di ...
stated they had terminated "relevant infrastructure and accounts" linked to NSO Group, following an investigation by
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
that discovered
Amazon CloudFront was being used to infect targets with the Pegasus malware.
The CEO of
WhatsApp
WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows us ...
, Will Cathcart, called for a global moratorium on the use of unaccountable surveillance technology and defended the use of
end-to-end encryption following the reports.
National governments
Algeria
In a statement released,
Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, relig ...
's public prosecutor has ordered an investigation into the reports that the country may have been a target of the Pegasus spyware.
France
After the revelations of the Pegasus Project investigation, in which it was revealed that the French president
Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France since 2017. ''Ex officio'', he is also one of the two Co-Princes of Andorra. Prior to his presidency, Macron served as Minister of Econ ...
was targeted,
France launched an investigation into the matter. In the aftermath of these revelations, Macron changed his telephone number and replaced his phone. Furthermore, he ordered an overhaul in security procedures.
Macron reportedly contacted Israel's prime minister
Naftali Bennett
Naftali Bennett ( he, נַפְתָּלִי בֶּנֶט, Transliterated: , ; born 25 March 1972) is an Israeli politician who served as the 13th prime minister of Israel from 13 June 2021 to 30 June 2022, and as the 3rd Alternate Prime Minist ...
to discuss Israel's internal investigation and express concern that his data appeared on the list of potential targets and urged Bennett to conduct an inquiry.
French intelligence (
ANSSI
Anssi is a given name. Notable people with the name include:
*Anssi Jaakkola (born 1987), Finnish footballer
*Anssi Joutsenlahti, pensioned vicar and a member of the parliament of Finland
*Anssi Juutilainen (born 1956), Finnish ski-orienteering co ...
) confirmed that Pegasus spyware had been found on the phones of three journalists, including a journalist of
France 24
France 24 ( in French) is a French state-owned international news television network based in Paris. Its channels broadcast in French, English, Arabic, and Spanish and are aimed at the overseas market.
Based in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-M ...
, in what was the first time an independent and official authority corroborated the findings of the investigation.
Hungary
A statement from the office of
Viktor Orbán
Viktor Mihály Orbán (; born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian politician who has served as prime minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has presided over Fidesz since 1993, with a brief break between 20 ...
in
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
stated that they were not aware of any alleged data collection.
On 22 July, the Prosecution Service of Hungary announced that it would open an investigation to determine whether there was an illegal data collection.
On November 4, 2021,
Lajos Kósa
Lajos Kósa (born 14 March 1964) is a Hungarian politician, who served as Mayor of Debrecen between 1998 and 2014. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1990.
Kósa was appointed one of the four Vice Presidents of the Fidesz party in 2007, a ...
, Member of Parliament and Vice President of
Fidesz, member of the Parliamentary Defence and Law Enforcement Committee, admitted that the Ministry of Interior had purchased and used the Pegasus software.
India
The government has not denied the usage of Pegasus spyware in their response so far.
The government has also denied the request for investigation or an independent
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
inquiry by the opposition into the matter.
The official response of the Government of India to ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' stated that "
e allegations regarding government surveillance on specific people has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever" and that such news reports were an attempt to "malign the Indian democracy and its institutions". They further stated that each case of interception, monitoring and decryption is approved by the
Union Home Secretary and that there exists an oversight mechanism in the form of a review committee headed by the Union Cabinet Secretary and that any such interceptions have been done under the due process of law.
The former IT minister of India
Ravi Shankar Prasad
Ravi Shankar Prasad (born 30 August 1954) is an Indian politician and lawyer, from the Bharatiya Janata Party. A Member of Parliament since 2000, first in the Rajya Sabha (2000-2019) and then in the Lok Sabha (since 2019), Prasad has served as Un ...
asked, "If more than 45 nations are using Pegasus as NSO has said, why is only India being targeted?"
The Indian IT Minister
Ashwini Vaishnaw in a statement in parliament stated that the reports were "highly sensational" and that they had "no factual basis". He further stated that NSO themselves had rubbished the claims. He stated that the existence of numbers in a list was not sufficient evidence to indicate that the spyware was used and said that the report itself stated the same and without the physical examination of the phone such claims cannot be corroborated.
The
Minister of Home and Internal Security Amit Shah
Amit Anil Chandra Shah (born 22 October 1964) is an Indian politician currently serving as the Minister of Home Affairs since 2019 and the first Minister of Co-operation of India since 2021. He served as the President of the Bharatiya Janata P ...
in a statement on his blog insinuated that this was an attempt to disrupt the monsoon session of the parliament and that the opposition parties were "jumping on a bandwagon" and were trying to "derail anything progressive that comes up in Parliament". He stated that the report was an attempt to "derail India's development trajectory through their conspiracies".
Replying to allegations from the opposition, Minister of State in
Ministry of Home Affairs
An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs.
Lists of current ministries of internal affairs
Named "ministry"
* Ministry ...
Ajay Kumar Mishra
Ajay Mishra Teni (born 25 September 1960) is a politician and a Member of Parliament in the 17th Lok Sabha. He is the current Minister of State in Ministry of Home affairs, Government of India. He represents the Kheri constituency of Uttar Prad ...
said that there is no reason for a probe and the people who made the allegations are "political failures".
Israel
The
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
i government denied having access to the information gathered by NSO's clients.
In the aftermath of the revelations by the investigations of the Pegasus Project, the head of the Israeli parliament's
Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee announced a commission to investigate the allegations of misuse of Pegasus for surveillance and hacking.
In December 2021, the Israeli Defense Ministry imposed new restrictions on the export of cyber warfare tools as a result of the scandals involving NSO.
Kazakhstan
In the revelations made by the investigation, it came to light that the
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
's former Prime Minister,
Bakhytzhan Sagintayev, could have been targeted.
Furthermore, it has been reported that
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev
Kassym-Jomart Kemeluly Tokayev ( kk, Қасым-Жомарт Кемелұлы Тоқаев, Qasym-Jomart Kemelūly Toqaev ; born 17 May 1953) is a Kazakh politician and diplomat who is currently serving as the President of Kazakhstan since 12 J ...
, the president of Kazakhstan, was also targeted.
However, top officials have claimed that these reports and allegations of the president being spied on were "without evidence". Furthermore, the deputy head of Kazakhstan's presidential administration
Dauren Abaev
Dauren Askerbekuly Abaev (born 18 April 1979) is a Kazakh politician, who's serving as a Minister of Culture and Sports.
Biography
Abaev was born in the Almaty Region in 1979.
He graduated from Al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Al-Farabi ...
said the list of targets was "rather intriguing information without any evidence".
Morocco
The Moroccan government denied claims of acquiring and using Pegasus, saying it "categorically rejects and condemns these unfounded and false allegations, as it has done with previous similar allegations by Amnesty International".
The Moroccan ambassador to France,
Chakib Benmoussa
Chakib Benmoussa ( ar, شكيب بن موسى) (born 1958, Fes) is a Moroccan diplomat and politician. He previously served as the interior minister of Morocco[Jeune Afrique
''Jeune Afrique'' (English: ''Young Africa'') is a French-language pan-African weekly news magazine, founded in 1960 in Tunis and subsequently published in Paris. It is the most widely read pan-African magazine. It is also a book publisher, unde ...]
, Moroccan Foreign Minister
Nasser Bourita
Nasser Bourita ( ar, ناصر بوريطة; born ) is a Morocco, Moroccan diplomat serving as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates (Morocco), Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Ex ...
stated it was "important to shed light on the facts, far from controversy and slander", and claimed that certain figures within the Pegasus consortium "serve agendas well known for their primary hostility towards Morocco and are ulcerated by its successes under the leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI."
Morocco later sued Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories for defamation, with lawyer , acting on behalf of the government, saying that the Moroccan state "wants all possible light cast on these false allegations", and that it "does not intend to let the multiple lies and fake news spread these past few days go unpunished". It also issued defamation citations against ''Le Monde'', Mediapart and Radio France on 28 July, and filed an injunction request against the German newspaper ''
Süddeutsche Zeitung
The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of SZ is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and social-democrat.
History ...
'' on 2 August.
Pakistan
The
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
of
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
,
Imran Khan
Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi ( ur}; born 5 October 1952) is a Pakistani politician and former Cricket captain who served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan from August 2018 to until April 2022, when he was ousted through a no-confidenc ...
, whose name was revealed to be in the list,
has called on the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
for an investigation on the Indian use of Pegasus.
Rwanda
Rwanda
Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...
, through a statement by
Vincent Biruta
Vincent Biruta (born July 19, 1958) is a Rwandan physician and politician, who is serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, having been appointed in November 2019. Previously, he served as the Minister for Environment in the Rwandan cabinet, s ...
,
Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation
Minister may refer to:
* Minister (Christianity), a Christian cleric
** Minister (Catholic Church)
* Minister (government), a member of government who heads a ministry (government department)
** Minister without portfolio, a member of government w ...
, denied using Pegasus and claimed that "false accusations" of the country using Pegasus were "part of an ongoing campaign to cause tensions between Rwanda and other countries, and to promote disinformation about Rwanda domestically and internationally."
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
's official
Saudi Press Agency has denied all allegations of its use of Pegasus spyware on journalists and human rights activists as "baseless". The allegations were dismissed as "untrue".
United Arab Emirates
A statement released by the
UAE
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...
's foreign minister stated that the allegations of use of the Pegasus spyware by the UAE on journalists and individuals were "categorically false" and that such allegations had no evidentiary basis and they denied all allegations.
This despite
ample material evidences of UAE dissidents being targeted.
Other reactions
In India the
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...
accused
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
Narendra Modi
Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...
of "
treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
" and compromising national security following the release of the reports and called for the removal of
Minister of Home and Internal Security Amit Shah
Amit Anil Chandra Shah (born 22 October 1964) is an Indian politician currently serving as the Minister of Home Affairs since 2019 and the first Minister of Co-operation of India since 2021. He served as the President of the Bharatiya Janata P ...
and an investigation of the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi into the affair.
The Indian IT minister made a statement that similar claims were made in the past regarding Pegasus for
WhatsApp
WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows us ...
which had no factual basis and was even denied by the
Supreme Court of India
The Supreme Court of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...
. However, many of the statements made by the Indian IT minister were verified by the
Internet Freedom Foundation
Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) is an Indian non-governmental organisation that conducts advocacy on digital rights and liberties, based in New Delhi. IFF files petitions and undertakes advocacy campaigns to defend online freedom, privacy, ne ...
and were not found to be accurate.
West Bengal Chief Minister
Mamata Banerjee
Mamata Banerjee (; born 5 January 1955) is an Indian politician who is serving as the eighth and current List of chief ministers of West Bengal, chief minister of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of West Bengal since 20 ...
alleged that the central government intends to "turn India into a surveillance state" where "democracy is in danger". On July 26, 2021 The West Bengal Chief Minister announced a commission of inquiry into the alleged surveillance of phones using Pegasus. Retired Supreme Court judge
Justice Madan B Lokur, and former Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, Justice (retd)
Jyotirmay Bhattacharya, have been appointed as members of the commission.
In India, some news articles were released making claims that Amnesty never claimed that the leaked phone numbers were of NSO's Pegasus spyware list. However, these reports were later proven to be false, and Amnesty issued a statement stating that it categorically stands by the findings of the investigation and that the data is irrefutably linked to potential targets of Pegasus.
The
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
awarded the 2021 Daphne Caruana Galizia journalism prize to the Pegasus Project.
Government investigations
On 20 July 2021, it was reported that French prosecutors would investigate allegations that Moroccan intelligence services used Pegasus to spy on French journalists.
France's national agency for information systems security (
ANSSI
Anssi is a given name. Notable people with the name include:
*Anssi Jaakkola (born 1987), Finnish footballer
*Anssi Joutsenlahti, pensioned vicar and a member of the parliament of Finland
*Anssi Juutilainen (born 1956), Finnish ski-orienteering co ...
) identified digital traces of Pegasus on three journalists' phones and relayed its findings to the Paris public prosecutor's office, which is overseeing the investigation into possible hacking.
See also
*
NSO Group
NSO Group Technologies (NSO standing for Niv, Shalev and Omri, the names of the company's founders) is an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance o ...
*
DarkMatter (Emirati company)
*
SCL Group
SCL Group (formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories) was a private British behavioural research and strategic communication company that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal involving its subsidiaries ...
*
WhatsApp snooping scandal
On October 30, 2019, WhatsApp's parent company Meta Platforms, Facebook, Inc. confirmed that Pegasus (spyware), Pegasus, a sophisticated snooping software developed by Israel's NSO Group, was used to target Indian journalists, activists, lawyers ...
*
Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal
*
Facebook abuses campaigns by governments
*
Edward Snowden
Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...
*
Pegasus Project revelations in India
In India, the Pegasus Project investigations alleged that the Pegasus spyware was used on ministers, opposition leaders, political strategist and tacticians, journalists, activists, minority leaders, supreme court judges, religious leaders, a ...
References
{{reflist, 30em
Data breaches
Espionage scandals and incidents
Hacking in the 2010s
IOS malware
Malware toolkits
Political scandals in Hungary
Political scandals in India
Spyware