An Israeli company has been accused of attempting to and successfully hacking dozens of journalists, government officials, and business leaders’ phones on a global scale.
The NSO Group has denied their company or clients used their Pegasus software to hack 37 phones, which appeared on a list of more than 50,000 numbers. The allegation was first reported by the Washington Post and sixteen other media partners on Sunday.
The group’s reporting does not explain why these people’s numbers were put on the list and whether every number on it had been targeted or surveilled. The phone numbers on the list are unattributed, but the group was able to identify more than 1,000 people spanning more than 50 countries.
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At least 65 business executives, 85 human rights activists, 189 journalists, and more than 600 politicians and government officials were found on the list, in addition to several Arab royal family members. Two women close with murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi were also reportedly targeted.
Journalists from CNN, the Associated Press, Voice of America, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Le Monde in France, the Financial Times in London, and Al Jazeera in Qatar all appeared on this list.
NSO has said their Pegasus spyware is only intended to be used to surveil terrorists and major criminals.
Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based journalism nonprofit group, and Amnesty International, a human rights group, got access to the list and shared it with the collection of media outlets.
NSO called the report “full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories that raise serious doubts about the reliability and interests of the sources,” because said sources “have supplied information that has no factual basis and are far from reality,” according to a Sunday statement on their website.
The company “firmly den[ies] the false allegations made in their report,” adding that they believe the story is “based on misleading interpretation of data from accessible and over basic information … which have no bearing on the list of the customers targets of Pegasus or any NSO products.”
A handful of media outlets have condemned the apparent spying.
“Journalists must be allowed to report the news in the public interest without fear of harassment or harm, wherever they are. We are aware of the report and are looking into the matter,” Reuters’s spokesperson Dave Moran said, per an article on their website.
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“We are deeply troubled to learn that two AP journalists, along with journalists from many news organizations, are among those who may have been targeted by Pegasus spyware,” Director of Associated Press Media Relations Lauren Easton said. “We have taken steps to ensure the security of our journalists’ devices and are investigating.”
“The sort of surveillance being reported is an appalling violation of press freedoms and we strongly condemn it,” a Bloomberg News spokesperson said.
