Palestinian rights defenders hacked with NSO's Pegasus, report finds
The investigation found one of the hacked devices belonged to an American citizen.
Six Palestinian human rights defenders were reportedly hacked with Pegasus, according to a new digital forensic investigation into the controversial spyware developed by Israeli cyber-surveillance firm NSO Group.
Front Line Defenders, an Ireland-based international human rights group, investigated 75 iPhones belonging to Palestinian rights defenders and determined that six of them were hacked using Pegasus in 2020 and 2021.
Both Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog organization at the University of Toronto, and Amnesty International’s Security Lab reviewed Front Line Defenders’ research and confirmed its findings independently.
Researchers say the hacking software developed and sold by NSO Group can be used to remotely access a phone’s contents and turn on the camera and microphone. Pegasus can infect targeted devices with so-called “zero-click” attacks, which install the spyware without requiring the owner to click on a malicious link.
