BWhen eavesdropping, it is useful if existing infrastructure can be used. Smartphones—almost everyone carries them with them and are usually connected to the Internet 24 hours a day—like laptops and tablets, provide an ideal attack surface for eavesdropping activities. Antivirus software entrepreneur Yevgeny Kaspersky said in 2017 that he carried an old Nokia phone with him. It is almost impossible to check whether the smartphone is actually turned off.
A research network led by a French non-profit organization Taboo story Investigative reporter Laurent Richard (Laurent Richard) published parts of a large-scale study of such eavesdropping. It shows how at least ten countries, including Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Mexico and India, have turned the smartphones of journalists, activists and opposition politicians into surveillance with the help of the spyware Pegasus of the Israeli company NSO Group Machine. In the most prominent case so far, it is said that the Saudi Arabian government is the environment of journalist Jamal who was murdered in Istanbul in 2018. Kashuji was wiretapped before and after the murder. According to the Guardian, Rahul Gandhi, a rival of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is said to be one of the targets of Pegasus surveillance.
The study was simultaneously published in several international media on Monday (in Germany, with the participation of a research network composed of NDR, WDR and Süddeutscher Zeitung and Die Zeit) based on leaked data leaked to Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International. This is a copy of A list of more than 50,000 phone numbers that have been selected as possible targets for national surveillance since 2016 in order to use Pegasus for surveillance.
It is also a democratic country among customers
The NSO Group has previously assured that it will only sell its software to government agencies that have been inspected in advance. According to the Guardian, the software can be verified in more than fifty countries. Democracies such as Spain and the Netherlands are also so-called clients. As reported by SZ, NSO also tried to sell its products to German authorities. However, officially, at least the police in the federal states did not succeed. Despite this, the German Journalists Association requested on Monday that “German security authorities and secret services provide information on whether Pegasus spyware has been used against German journalists.”
In order to use Pegasus, the corresponding user, such as the Secret Service of a certain country, must locate the smartphone by phone number. Then he has to go through different doors to try: the system can simulate the cell phone network connected to the smartphone, which means that the traffic is routed through the NSO server that plays spyware. Or send a manipulation link to the recipient through a message. After clicking the recipient, you can ensure that Pegasus has been loaded on the phone. But these are just some attack vectors. Not everyone knows. If a smartphone is infected with Pegasus, users can remotely access various functions of the device. In addition, he can read chat messages (even encrypted messages), view calendars, read out passwords, record conversations, and control microphones. Most common smartphones have difficulty protecting themselves from this software-if you are unsure or even doubt whether you are being monitored, you can contact the Amnesty International Security Lab.
in a Sunday statement The National Bureau of Statistics Group counterattacked: the report of “Taboo Stories” was “full of false assumptions and unproven theories, and seriously doubted the reliability and interest of the source.” Their information “has no basis in fact and is far from reality.” These allegations have been confirmed and “false allegations have been dismissed.” Also consider complaints about reputation damage. The source of the report may interpret publicly available data, such as “misleading” cellular network home location register data. The data coming from the NSO server is a lie, they never existed there.
