The Pegasus spyware saga has embroiled several African governments and could prompt further diplomatic fallouts, experts have suggested.
An intelligence leak has alleged that agencies have been using Israeli company NSO Group’s Pegasus software to monitor the phones of thousands of politicians, dissidents, journalists, business executives and various public figures around the world.
The investigation, conducted by non-profit group Forbidden Stories along with Amnesty International, the Washington Post and 16 other news organizations, alleges that the military-grade spyware was used to hack and surveil targets’ smartphones from afar.
“Not only does it expose the risk and harm to those individuals unlawfully targeted, but also the extremely destabilizing consequences on global human rights and the security of the digital environment at large,” Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said in a statement Friday.
“NSO Group is just one company. This is a dangerous industry that has operated on the edges of legality for too long, and this cannot be allowed to continue.”
NSO Group has staunchly denied the claims in several lengthy rebukes, arguing that the investigation includes “uncorroborated theories” based on “misleading interpretation of leaked data from accessible and overt basic information.”
NSO said the spyware is only used to surveil terrorists and other criminals, and denied that the leaked list of around 50,000 phone numbers had anything to do with the company.
Macron and Morocco
French President Emmanuel Macron has changed his phone number and called on Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to pursue an inquiry into the allegations raised in the report, which indicated that Macron was being surveilled by Morocco.
Reports claim that Morocco was the most enthusiastic user of the Pegasus software, with more than 10,000 of the 50,000 numbers contained in the leak deemed of interest to the country’s secret services.
The numbers of several journalists now jailed in Morocco also feature, along with former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and European Council President Charles Michel, obtained during the latter’s time as prime minister of Belgium, and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
NSO Group has denied this, claiming the likes of Macron, Ghebreyesus and Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, who also appeared on the list, had never been “targets.”
