Pegasus spyware used to target phones of journalists and activists, investigation finds

A sweeping investigation by 17 media outlets found that NSO Group’s Pegasus software was used in hacking attempts on 37 smartphones belonging to human rights activists and journalists, The Washington Post reported. The phones were on a leaked list of numbers discovered by Paris journalism nonprofit Hidden Stories and human rights group Amnesty International, according to the Post. The numbers on the list were singled out for possible surveillance by countries who are clients of NSO, the report states, which markets its spyware to governments to track potential terrorists and criminals.

Pegasus can extract all of a mobile device’s data, and activate the device’s microphone to listen in on conversations surreptitiously, as The Guardian n...

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