Palestine (Washington Insider Magazine) -Rights group Front Line Defenders (FLD) has announced that it has found that six people working for Palestinian NGOs had their phones hacked using spyware developed by Israeli technology firm NSO Group.
FLD, which is based in Dublin, said that it was first contacted by civil society group Al Haq, who is based in Ramallah, Palestine. Al Haq was worried that one of its staff had their phone possibly infected.
The findings were shared with Citizen Lab and Amnesty International, who both corroborated the FLD’s conclusions.
No accusations have been made yet of which government ordered the hacks. NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware is gathering infamy as an efficient means of cracking down on dissent by governments. The firm, which is headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, refuses to share information on which governments have paid for its spyware as this would supposedly be a breach of contract.
It describes the use of its spyware as a means for “law enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world to defend the public from serious crime and terror.”
The company proudly labels Pegasus as a key tool in the capture of El Chapo, who’s phone was surveilled using the spyware. Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon called the company to thank them in 2011.
Not all stories concerning Pegasus so far portray it in such a valiant light, however. There have been accusations that it has been used on two women who are connected to the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It’s also said to have been used to track and monitor the widow of a murdered Mexican journalist as well as an activist and journalist in Morocco.
The Israeli government classifies the Pegasus spyware as a weapon which means that the technology cannot be exported without governmental approval. It is only licensed to approved foreign governments, but never to private entities.
The extent of its use in occupied Palestine is not currently fully known, but it is not expected that the six NGO staff will be the only people in the country to have been infiltrated by the groundbreaking weapon.
