Pegasus: Cell phones intercepted presidents – more regions – international

Telephone numbers of French President Emmanuel Macron and members of his government are on the list of possible targets Pegasus Software, Some states used personalities to spy, the director of the French newspaper Forbidden Stories said Tuesday.

“We found these phone numbers, but we were unable to conduct a technical investigation into Emmanuel Macron’s phone,” Laurent Richard explained to the LCI chain, confirming a report from the newspaper The world.

(Background: Israeli software has helped spy on journalists around the world)

For its part, the American newspaper Washington Post On Tuesday, Macron announced that he had joined forces with Iraqi President Barham Salih and South African Cyril Ramaphosa. Except for three acting prime ministers, Imran Khan of Pakistan, Mostaba Madbooli of Egypt and Saad-e-Edin el-Otmani of Morocco.

According to him Mail, The Spy plan It received information from seven former prime ministers, including Chad Hariri of Lebanon, Ruhagana Rukunda of Uganda and Charles Michel of Belgium.

Finally, it indicates King Mohammed VI of Morocco Among the senior leaders who are the target of the Pegasus project.

In addition Prohibited stories, Human rights organization Amnesty International accessed a list of more than 50,000 numbers and shared them with various news organizations.

The telephone numbers of the French president and 13 world leaders appeared in a list containing data selected for customer tracking NSO team, Records show.

For now, the purpose of the list is unknown and the NSO denies that there are monitoring objectives. “The data has a number of reasonable and completely relevant applications that have nothing to do with surveillance or NSO,” Tom Claire, a lawyer representing the company, told Prohibited Stories.

However, according to Mail In a study by Amnesty International’s security lab, 37 of the 67 smartphones linked to the numbers on the list showed signs of being successfully infiltrated by Pegasus or attempted infiltration.

Many of the public phones showed signs of infection or even got a few seconds after the time stamps that appeared on the list of minutes or number of times the infection was attempted.

The list included the telephone numbers of more than 600 government officials and politicians from 34 countries. In addition to the countries where the phone numbers of top leaders appeared, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bhutan, China, Congo, Egypt, Hungary, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Mali, Mexico, Nepal, Qatar, Rwanda. , Saudi Arabia, Togo, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States.

According to security analysts and marketing materials from NSO, Pegasus is designed to collect personal files, photos, call logs, location logs, communications and other data from smartphones, and can trigger cameras and microphones for real-time monitoring. In important moments. .

These attacks can often occur without the target receiving any warning or taking any action. Pegasus Slip for iPhone and Android devices can take control of smartphones that the surveillance department calls “Zero Click” attacks.

International Drafting
* With information from AFP

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