Pegasus hacking system
forgetten stories reports
don't touch my phone
NCO company threatens the national security and private lives of more than 50.000 persons around the world through dangerous spyware program called Pegasus
In the previous. it was difficult to hack your mobile device remotely by someone else. The penetration was confined to specific people, most of whom are presidents of countries and their associates. Therefore, with the development of mobile devices to become smart phones, most Arab leaders and kings were keen to keep their old-fashioned phones, such as Nokia phones, because they thought they are difficult to penetrate and been hacked cause they are primitive in origin. But with the advanced espionage and surveillance capabilities, everyone is able to activate penetration programs, even by countries and small groups. It is terrifying to think that your daily digital assistant who accompanies you in your various outings and records all your calls and conversations and collects all your personal matters from photos and videos has become a spy on you for the benefit of other parties.
Espionage operations have always been confined to the most important figures in the state, from the head of state to the prime minister and some prominent political figures. But in our time, journalists have become the most vulnerable to hacking, and not any journalists, but those who convey the word of the general field through investigation into the affairs of the country. And of course, because most countries are dictatorial regimes. Many authoritarian countries classify dissidents and human rights activists as criminals who pose a threat to national security. Thus, it makes them targets for monitoring by the authorities, so that in some cases the authority resorts to liquidating the target “in the sense of killing ” if it constitutes a direct threat to the state.
In recent days, after the announcement of the big scandal centered around the Israeli Pegasus program owned by NSO, a company working in spyware. Although the American company NSO, which is based in Israel, claims that the purpose of its spyware programs is to fight crime and terrorism, the company has been affected by various cases over the past five years. At first, some think that NSO, like other companies that work on creating hacking programs that allow access to the victim’s phone via a text message or a phone call, the victim’s phone is quickly hacked when it is answered. But NSO has created a more advanced spyware program and It is so complicated that the device is hacked with “no-click” attacks, where the phone is hacked when the victim receives the hacked message or call without being answered. To be directly erased by the hack system. like nothing had happened! Once the phone is infected with Pegasus software, the NSO client can take full control of the phone by extracting the phone owner's messages, calls, photos and videos , and emails it receives, as well as secretly activating and operating cameras or microphones as well as reading the contents of messaging applications Encrypted such as WhatsApp, Telegram ... etc. also, follow the movement of the victim by accessing the GPS system and tracking his location through the sensors built into the phone.
A data leak that Forbidden Stories conducted with Amnesty International contained a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers targeted by NSO clients. among the most prominent victims. french President Emmanuel Macron and his country's Foreign Minister Jean Le Drian also European Council President Charles Michel and his father Louis Michel. But the interesting thing is that two-thirds of the victims were from Mexico, (being the first country to own the Pegasus program in 2011), including Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and some of his family members and acquaintances. The list includes the numbers of 26 Mexican journalists, including the head of the New York Times' Mexico bureau. and of course like i said before targets of the NSO clients could possibly killed by their own government like what happened with Cecilia Pineda. On March 2, 2017, Mexican journalist Cecilia Pineda took out his phone and recorded his last broadcast. the reporter from the city of Altamirano, who runs a Facebook page with more than 50,000 followers, spoke of alleged collusion between the state and local police and the leader of a drug gang. Two hours later, he was shot and killed by two men at least six times while lying in a hammock outside a car wash. Of course, since the company is Israel's, it is certain that the countries that are members of the Abraham Agreement have a share in the program's list of targets. starting with the UAE, where recent leaks showed that the daughter of the ruler of Dubai, Sheikha Latifa, and his ex-wife, Haya Bint Al Hussein, were among the targeted figures. It is almost certain that the failed escape of Sheikha Latifa in her attempt to flee the country was due to the UAE government's monitoring of the Sheikha's phone. Perhaps one of the most important cases of espionage that claimed the life of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in his country's embassy in Turkey in 2018. And it has been confirmed that many numbers of Khashoggi's relatives and friends are on a list of targets by the Saudi government. among them are his son Abdullah and his fiancée Khadija, whose phone was confirmed to have been hacked 4 days after his murder.
NSO received several lawsuits from Canada, filed by the Saudi dissident Amber bin Abdulaziz, residing in Canada, accusing the company of aiding his Saudi state by eavesdropping, spying on him, and monitoring his messages with journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Although Saudi Arabia denied its involvement in the Khashoggi murder case, but as we all know that lies has short ways. after short months a new case popped up in the air. the scandal of hacking the owner of Amazon and the owner of the Washington Post, "Jeff Bezos", was later revealed a few months later by Saudi Arabia through the Pegasus program. where Jeff received an MP4 video from the Saudi crown prince, to extract large data from his phone. Bezos accused American Media, the owner of the National Enquirer, of trying to blackmail him by threatening to publish "intimate photos" he allegedly sent to his girlfriend. In a blog post, Bezos alluded to Saudi Arabia's dissatisfaction with the Washington Post's coverage of the murder of journalist Khashoggi, and also referred to media reports of alleged ties between American Media and Saudi Arabia. Thus, the goal of blackmailing Jeff is clear, and it is to put pressure on the Washington Post for its reporting of news about Saudi Arabia, especially regarding Khashoggi's death.
It was not limited to opposition political figures only, but the matter expanded to include social networking programs. In May 2019, the WhatsApp company owned by Facebook accused NSO of using malicious software to penetrate its application for the purpose of monitoring the phones of some journalists and political activists. Through the WhatsApp connection feature, the company continued in its statement that it had addressed the major security flaw caused by the NSO spying company. And asked its users to immediately update the application.
The "Forbidden Stories" platform and the French newspaper "Le Monde" also reported that Morocco was among the countries in the world that used the “Pegasus” program the most, and according to the data, a Moroccan security service allocated a large security space with approximately 6,000 Algerians potential targets, including senior Algerian officials, most notably the late army chief of staff. General Gaid Salah and other military leaders and family members of former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. The list also included the current Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra, Abdelkader Messahel and other prominent figures in the movement. However, Morocco denied all the allegations and threatened to resort to the judiciary. the targeting also included a group of journalists and activists opposing the Moroccan regime. Among them is Hicham Mansouri, an independent investigative journalist and one of the founders of the Moroccan Association of Investigative Journalists. He is currently working on a book on the illegal drug trade in Moroccan prisons. He fled Morocco in 2016 after being subjected to many legal and physical threats. In 2014, he was beaten by two unknown persons after leaving a meeting with human rights defenders, including the historian Maati Monjib, who was also targeted by Pegasus. A year later, intelligence agents raided his house at 9 am. Then they found him and his girlfriend in bed together to be stripped naked and arrested on charges of adultery to spend ten months in Rabat prison in a cell designated for the most dangerous criminals, whom the prisoners called "Labobel" meaning trash or trash. The day after his release, Mansouri left prison for France, applying for asylum, which he later obtained. Thinking that he had finished his days of misery and the Kingdom of Morocco's pursuit of him. But after 5 years it was discovered that he is still a target of the Moroccan government. Together with the most prominent newspaper editor, Taoufik Bouachrine, who wrote opinion articles criticizing the Moroccan regime and accusing several senior officials of corruption. In 2018, he was arrested on charges of human trafficking, prostitution, rape and sexual harassment of 14 women. Two of them confirmed the presence of the Pegasus program in their phone. Also, Suleiman Raissouni, editor-in-chief of "Akhbar Al Youm" newspaper, who was famous for his articles calling for reform in Morocco. And who was arrested in 2018 on charges of indecent assault and sexual assault of a female colleague. In this context, the human rights organization says that it exploited the charges against Moroccan journalists in an attempt to shut down the independent press in Morocco. On the other hand, many Azerbaijani dissidents were targeted, including Khadija Ismayilova (the most famous investigative journalist in Azerbaijan). Khadija’s phone was targeted in 2019 by the Pegasus program. The latter was subjected to fierce campaigns and harassment that it did not publish from investigative and investigative articles in corruption cases related to the autocratic President Ilham Aliyev.
Technology has emerged as a major tool in the hands of repressive government actors and the intelligence agencies working on their behalf. for any dissenting voice. Journalists who appear in these records have received legal threats, others have been arrested and defamed, and some have had to flee their countries due to persecution only to find themselves still under surveillance. until the ban was exceeded, journalists who were selected as targets were killed. hackers and digital tyranny continue to confront dictatorial countries that seek to silence critical voices and consume privacy.Therefore, everyone, whether journalists or ordinary people, should always remember that a personal mobile phone is a potential surveillance device.
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