Amnesty International said Monday that software developed by Israeli security firm NSO Group was used to attack a Moroccan journalist, the latest in a series of allegations against company:
The Israeli firm told AFP that it was “deeply troubled by the allegations” and was reviewing the information.
Amnesty said the Moroccan authorities used NSO’s Pegasus software to insert spyware onto the cellphone of Omar Radi, a journalist convicted in March over a social media post.
Pegasus is reportedly a highly invasive tool that can switch on a target’s phone camera and microphone as well as access data on it, effectively turning the phone into a pocket spy.
“The attacks occurred over a period when Radi was being repeatedly harassed by the Moroccan authorities, with one attack taking place just days after NSO pledged to stop its products being used in human rights abuses,” Amnesty said in a statement.
The hacking of Radi’s phone continued until at least January, the London-based rights group said.
The Israeli firm said it could not comment on “any relationship NSO Group might have with Moroccan authorities” due to confidentiality, but that it was looking into the concerns raised by Amnesty.
The company told AFP that it would “initiate an investigation if warranted”.
Amnesty said that Radi had been “systematically targeted by the Moroccan authorities due to his journalism and activism”.
In March, a Moroccan court gave him a four-month suspended sentence for criticizing a judge in a tweet. He told AFP at the time that he would appeal the verdict.
Amnesty has petitioned an Israeli court to revoke NSO’s defense ministry export licence due to multiple hacking allegations.
The case is ongoing and Amnesty said Monday it expected a judgement “soon”.
NSO is being sued in the United States by messaging service WhatsApp over alleged cyber-espionage on human rights activists and others.
The Israeli firm says it only licenses its software to governments for “fighting crime and terror” and that it investigates credible allegations of misuse.
However, the company has been in the headlines since 2016 when researchers accused it of helping spy on an activist in the United Arab Emirates.
Founded in 2010 by Israelis Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie, NSO Group is based in the Israeli hi-tech hub of Herzliya, near Tel Aviv. It says it employs 600 people in Israel and around the world.
Israelis murder Palestinians who throw rocks at their tanks and call it “fighting terror” so we all know virtually any of their actions can be justified under that “terror” rubric.
Everybody should assume that their cellphones are not secure — that the Israelis and their partners have a backdoor into virtually all of them.
Though WhatsApp is Pegasus spyware is public knowledge at this point, Canada has never the less already arrested a citizen for trying to warn people of this security risk.
And it’s no coincidence that NSO Group is closely associated with the shadowy Black Cube intelligence firm.
The Israelis also have back doors into voting machine software — as if they are going to let ‘free’ democratic elections determine their security interests.
Of course, it’s an ‘antisemitic canard‘ that spying comes naturally to Jews, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of convicted spies in America since the 1930s have been Jews, like the Rosenbergs and Jonathan Pollard.
Nothing to see here, folks, just move along….
Am tech savy and Freemason lodge agents once had a phone of mine stolen for dissection to ascertain how I’d accomplished a secure mic mod i developed an been using for over a Decade since i got wind of and had suspicions that the units mics can & were been used as listening devices Even with unit turned off. I figure everyone has been at least sound ‘bugged’ by cellphone for last 15 years minimum.
And we’re surprised?
no smartphone for me please.
[looks like even the desktop is being diddled with – suddenly TOR doesnt want to work and cant access most sites thru it, including this one…]