Israel’s Cyber Security Firm ‘NSO Group’ Permits Foreign Intelligence Agencies to Spy on Human Rights Activists

‘The NYT’s lead story recently featured a chilling story of the infamous Israeli cyber-security firm, NSO Group, whose Pegasus malware has been illegally utilized by Mexican intelligence agencies to spy on legitimate human rights and anti-corruption activists. NSO negotiates lucrative contracts with foreign governments, which purportedly use the malware to hack and control the cell phones of criminals and terrorists. The FBI used a similar tool to break into the iPhone of Rizwan Farook, the San Bernardino Islamist who murdered 15 of his work colleagues at a Christmas party.
But there’s a wee problem: one person’s human rights advocate is another’s terrorist. In other words, there are many governments in the world who don’t know the difference between the two, nor do they care. Anyone who threatens the established order is a terrorist. Bahrain used a UK malware developer to hack the phone of an exiled human rights activist. Another activist, perhaps aware of the previous episode, suspected a similar phishing attempt and immediately sent his phone to the Citizen’s Lab at the University of Toronto. It discovered yet another piece of malware which would’ve permitted the hacking of his phone had he clicked on the link.’
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