Several world leaders have used spyware Pegasus software to spy their political rivals or their uncomfortable journalists, The Guardian reports.These include the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, or Narendra Modi, the chief of the Indian Government.
Created and sold by the Israeli Supervisory Company NSO Group, Pegasus is a spyware software that infects iPhone and Android devices and allows its operators to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and activate microphones, all without user science..Data can then be sent to the one handling the soft.
Pegasus was used by Viktor Orban in his war with the press and opposition of Hungary
The government of Viktor Orban used this new weapon in the war he took and takes him with the Hungarian press, in an attempt to completely subordinate it, according to the analysis of a large number of mobile phones..
Orban used Pegasus, one of the most invasive spyware software, against investigative journalists and against the close circle of one of the latest Hungarian Trust Little Hungary owners..
The Pegasus project, an investigation by the French non-profit forbidden stories, evaluated the data-they suggest that a large number of people in Hungary were selected as potential targets before the software is used against them..Many of the analyzed devices had been infected with this spyware.
The drained information includes telephone numbers of some people under legitimate investigations, but besides, phone numbers from 10 lawyers, an opposition politician and at least five journalists have been discovered..Among them are Szabolcs Panyi, a well -known reporter with important sources in diplomatic and national security circles.
The analysis of the device made by Amnesty International has clearly showed that it was repeatedly infected with Pegasus over a seven -month period in 2019, the software being activated every time Panyi requested clarifications from Hungarian government officials..
Panyi says that some members of the Orban government believe that independent journalists are part of a conspiracy against them - "I think it is the widespread paranoia," he says.Hungarian government denied involvement.Previously, Viktor Orban's spokesman, Zoltan Kovacs, publicly attacked Panyi, whom he accused of "Orbanophobia and Hungarian".
Other selected citizens to be spyed include a photographer working with foreign journalists and another well-known investigative journalist who refused analysis on his device for fear of losing their sources.
Another journalist selected to be spying is David Dercsenyi, editor of a newspaper published in an area controlled by the anti-Orban opposition and who worked for five years at a news site..
These are amazed by the fact that it was the target of the espionage attempts of the Orban regime - he says that his work had no connection with sensitive themes, which could have interested the Orban government..He suspects that a request sent to the authorities on the process of a former ISIS member has triggered the Government's interest to spy.None of the phones that appear in the leak of information were in its possession, so the data analysis was no longer possible.
Another way Orban tries to subordinate his press is by offering subsidies.According to Zoltan Varga, the owner 24.Hu, the largest independent news site in the country, Orban offered to offer generous state subsidies if some journalists had been expelled.
"They have the impression that everything is about money.I already have money.Slowly, I became an enemy for them, ”he said.
Subsequently, Varga began to notice that he was being watched at home and in the business meetings he had in public.He says that sometimes, in the middle of a phone call, the recording of the call could be heard.Moreover, he claims that a black helicopter fluttered his house and tried to descend near the garden in an attempt to intimidate him.
A few weeks after Orban won the third consecutive term, Varga invited six friends at Dinner, among them Attila Chikan, minister in Orban's first government, since the end of the 1990s and who, meanwhile, has becomeone of the most focused critics of it.The six discussed the founding of a new organization to investigate and expose the corruption of the Hungarian regime - "it was a mere conversation between friends, not a coup attempt," says Varga.
Two weeks later, however, at the meeting with an acquaintance close to the Orban government, he was told that "such meetings could be dangerous".Pegasus information shows that all seven people who participated in this dinner have been selected as potential spy targets.One of these people had infected phone at that time.
Since the arrival of Viktor Orban in 2010, Hungary has collapsed dramatically in the Freedom of Press Index, descending from 23rd to 92nd place.Earlier this month, Reporters Without Borders put Orban on his free press list for the first time an EU leader appears on this list.
However, so far there have been no cases of physical violence against Hungarian journalists.In contrast, however, Orban's "wear war.Orban.
Orban would have purchased Pegasus after a meeting with Netanyahu
A former NSO employee, the Israeli company that developed the software, confirmed that Hungary purchased it in 2017, after one of the visits of Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister of Israel, in Hungary.NSO denied that he receives provisions of the Israeli government in terms of its customers.
In response to this information, a Budapest government spokesman said: "Hungary is a democratic state governed by the law and, therefore, when it comes to individuals, has permanently acted on the laws in force..In Hungary, state bodies authorized to use spy tools are regularly monitored by government and non-governmental institutions ”.
However, Hungary has one of the most relaxed legal frames to authorize supervision.There is no control of the courts if the request is made motivating national security, only the signature of the Minister of Justice is required.
Orban government approved 1285 Such Supervisory Requests in 2020.In a previous interview with a partner of Project Pegasus, the Minister of Justice of Hungary, Judit Varga, was asked if he would authorize a journalist's supervision.He refused to answer the question, which he called a "challenge".
To the same question, the Government Press Office answered in a way that reminds a dictatorship: “You asked these questions to the US governments, UK, Germany or France.If you did it, how quickly did you get the answer and what kind of reply did you receive.Was there any information service that helped you formulate your questions? ”
The Prime Minister of India spied on his political opponents with the help of Pegasus
Another leader who used the Pegasus spyware is the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, who used it against its main political rival, Rahul Gandhi.It has been selected twice as potential target surveillance.He is just one of the dozens of politicians, journalists, activists and criticisms of the supervised government, writes The Guardian.
Two phone numbers that belonged to Gandhi appeared in information leaks.Also phones of five of Gandhi's close friends and other Indian National Congress (n.red.- Political Party) were identified as potential targets by the Indian government, just before the 2019 elections.
Gandhi, who changes his phone once a few months, not to be supervised, could not provide a device to be analyzed.If his phone was really infected, as the plans looked, then Modi had access to private information of his main rival in elections.
"The targeted surveillance of the type you describe, whether it would be related to me or other opposition leaders or any citizen who respects the law is illegal and deplorable.It is an attack on the country's democratic foundation, ”said Gandhi.
Target was also Prashant Kishor, political strateg that worked for the party that defeated Modi in the Western Bengal elections at the beginning of the year.The analysis showed that the phone had been "listened" including on the day he had been analyzed.
He had been infected in April, at the time of the election campaign, indicating that Kishor's phone calls, emails and messages have been monitored until the last weeks before the elections.
How Pegasus works
Pegasus is most likely the strongest spy software ever developed by a private company.Once he has succeeded in infecting a phone, it turns into a spy and monitoring device that can copy sent or received messages, can copy and send photos and record phone calls..
Can be used including to shoot from the phone's camera or to activate the microphone for recording the conversations.With the help of the GPS, it can show the one who spikes where you were, where you were and who did you meet with.
An initial version of Pegasus, 2016, infects phones using phishing links sent by SMS or e-mail.Since then, attack capabilities have become more sophisticated.Now, infection with Pegasus does not require action from users, being performed by "zero-click" attacks, exploiting vulnerabilities from the device operating system.
In 2019, WhatsApp revealed that the NSO software was used to send malware to 1400 phones by using such vulnerability-just by a call on WhatsApp, the target phone could be infected with Pegasus, even if the person does notAnswer on the phone.
Data drain contains a list of over 50.000 DESPA phone numbers that are believed to be of some people who are interested in NSO customers since 2016.
Forbidden Stories, a non-profit media organization in Paris, and Amnesty International had access to the filtered list and distributed it to the united partner publications in the "Pegasus project".
The presence of a phone number on the list does not show whether the device was infected with Pegasus or undergoing a pirate attempt.However, the powders believe that the data indicates the potential targets of the ONS government customers, identified before possible surveillance attempts.
There are hundreds of directors of companies, religious personalities, university staff, NGO employees, unions and government officials, including ministers and prime ministers..
The list also contains telephone numbers of the family members of a state leader, suggesting that he could ask information agencies to try to monitor his relatives.
De asemenea, pe listă sunt numerele de telefon peste 180 de jurnaliști, inclusiv reporteri,redactori și editori de la Financial Times, CNN, New York Times, France 24, The Economist, Associated Press și Reuters.
NSO said that "it does not operate the systems it sells to government customers check and does not have access to the data of its customers'.
Editor: Adrian Dumitru