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Governments are using Pegasus, the military-grade spyware sold by the Israeli firm NSO Group, to hack telephones belonging to journalists and dissidents around the world, according to research and reporting by a consortium of newsrooms and human rights organizations.Pegasus was used in the attempted or successful hacking of 37 phones, including devices belonging to investigative journalists in Azerbaijan, Mexico, India, and two women close to the murdered Saudi Arabian Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Coda Story has previously reported on the Indian government’s alleged use of Pegasus to target dissidents, including the late Father Stan Swamy, a prominent Jesuit priest and human rights activist.The telephones infected with Pegasus spyware were included on a list of 50,000 phone numbers, according to Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based journalism nonprofit, and Amnesty International. It is unknown how many of the numbers on that list were subject to surveillance using Pegasus, but at least 10 of the countries represented — including Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Hungary — are reportedly NSO Group clients.[…]
