Pegasus: The Trojan Horse

PARIS -The most expensive divorce in the world took place after Saudi Arabia`s intelligence absorbed private communication from Jeff Bezos's smartphone and the leaked data was published by media. Saudi Arabia used a spyware called "Pegasus" after the owner of Amazon and The Washington Post took a firm stand in the murder case of their journalist Jamal Kashoggi. According to Bryan Fogel`s documentary 'The Dissident', Saudi Arabia`s Crown prince is employing thousands of so-called "flies" - intelligence criminals - who steal communication and secrets all over the world and disseminate troll propaganda. Kashoggi had paid for many anonymous telephone cards for bloggers and human rights activists in Saudi Arabia in order not to be detected by these "flies".

Everyone who has ever engaged in an opposition to authoritarian governments has always been extremely wary of being spied on and "caught" through digital technology. The spyware is named after the Greek mythical flying horse "Pegasus" and has been created by the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group. It has garnered global attention after an investigation by 16 world media organizations called "Pegasus Project" revealed that activists, journalists, lawyers, and heads of state across the world could have been infiltrated by authoritative regimes using the spyware with a single message. The project is led by "Forbidden Stories" a Paris-based nonprofit organization of journalists and Amnesty International. 

The NSO Group insists that the spyware is only intended for use against criminals and terrorists. It claims to have sold its tools to 60 clients in 40 countries but refuses to identify them. However, the investigators, although they cannot see who has targeted the phones through the leaked information, have published a list of countries they think are using the malware, based on the patterns of who has been targeted. Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, India, and the United Arab Emirates are the countries that were published. 

Pegasus is malware that enables users to extract messages, photos, and emails, record calls, and secretly activate microphones from other Android and Apple Mobile phones. The leak contains a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers that, it is believed, have been identified as those of people of interest by clients of NSO since 2016.

The most popular among the people who might have been targeted besides Jeff Bezos include the President of France Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan, President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa, and the Fiance of Jamal Khashoggi, Hatice Cengiz.

Amnesty International examined 67 smartphones where attacks were suspected. Of those, 23 were successfully infected and 14 showed signs of attempted penetration. Amnesty International has also released a methodology report on how to check if traces of spyware is on your devices. This The Verge article explains further on how to use Amnesty's tool. 

This upcoming Frontline PBS documentary documents how the spyware was found on Jamal Khashoggi's fiance Hatice Cengiz.

'The Dissident' by Bryan Fogel documents the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.