At least 35 journalists and members of civil society have been infected with the NSO's Pegasus spyware in El Salvador (via 9To5Mac).
If you recall, exactly Pegasus was the spyware that was used to hack
iPhones without leaving any traces of its existence in the system.
According to a report
made by the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, Pegasus was found on
37 devices. Most of the victims were journalists working for several
media known for covering stories on potential corruption in El
Salvador's government. Pegasus is sophisticated spyware that may gather
sensitive information and access the phone's camera and microphone.
El
Faro, an online news site, was apparently the primary target of the
attack. According to the report, 22 of the hacked phones belonged to
journalists working in El Faro.
In a statement to Reuters, El Faro's editor-in-chief, Oscar Martínez, said, "It
is hard for me to think or conclude something other than the government
of El Salvador was behind the alleged hacks. It's evident that there is
a radical interest in understanding what El Faro is doing."
In
response to the accusations, El Salvador's government said that it's
not a client of NSO Group Technologies, which is the company behind
Pegasus, and stated that it also has an ongoing investigation into the
phone hacking. El Salvador's government also said that it has
information that the phones of some high administration officials have
also been infiltrated.
The Pegasus spyware in El Salvador was
found after two journalists reached Citizen Lab. The journalists
contacted Citizen Lab because they feared their phones had been hacked.
After that, Citizen Lab launched an investigation and discovered that
the phone hacks took place between July 2020 and November 2021.
What happened in El Salvador is another case where Pegasus was used to spy on journalists. As we previously reported,
the Pegasus spyware was used on a journalist working for the New York
Times. During his work around the Middle East, Ben Hubbard discovered
that his iPhone had been hacked twice with Pegasus by Saudi Arabia.
Read Also:
- Journalist's iPhone hacked by Saudi Arabia with Pegasus spyware
- Google releases its Pegasus hack analysis, here's how iPhone security was compromised
- Apple sues the 'amoral mercenaries' from NSO who made the iPhone spyware Pegasus
Source: phonearena.com
Who is to say that the Australian Government is not doing the same?
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