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JERUSALEM (AP) – Security researchers on Monday unveiled spyware from the notorious Israeli hacker company NSO Group It was detected on the mobile phones of six Palestinian human rights activists. Israel‘s defense minister controversially claimed that he was involved in terrorism.
Revelation marks the first known instance of military-level targeting of Palestinian activists Pegasus Its use against journalists, rights activists and political dissidents from Mexico to Saudi Arabia has been documented since 2015.
Successful Pegasus The infection gives intruders covert access to everything a person stores and does on their phone, including real-time communications.
It is not clear who put NSO The researcher who was the first to detect that the activists had spyware on their phones, Mohammed al-Maskati nonprofit Frontline Defenders.
Shortly after the first two attacks were detected in mid-October, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz declared six Palestinian non-governmental organizations terrorist organizations. Ireland-based Frontline Defenders and at least two of the victims say they are considering Israel He believes the prime suspect and designation may have been timed to try to dwarf the hackers’ discovery, even though they have presented no evidence to substantiate these claims.
Israel He publicly provided little evidence to support his designation of terrorism, which he said was aimed at draining funds from Palestinian groups and silencing opposition to Israeli military rule. Three of the Palestinians who were attacked work for civil society groups. Frontline Defenders says others are not doing this and they want to remain anonymous.
Forensic findings independently verified by security researchers Amnesty International and the University of Toronto Citizens Lab, in a joint white paper, NSO Group facing increasing condemnation for its spyware misuse, and Israel It takes heat for the loose surveillance of the digital surveillance industry.
Last week, Biden blacklisted the administration. NSO Group and a lesser known Israeli competitor, Candiru, is keeping them from US technology.
When asked about allegations that his software was being used against Palestinian activists, NSO Group In a statement, he said he did not identify his customers for contractual and national security reasons, that it was not private that they hacked and only sold to government agencies for use against “serious crime and terrorism”.
An Israeli defense official said in a brief statement that the identification of the six organizations was based on solid evidence and there were no allegations about their use. NSO software is false. The statement lacked further details, and officials declined requests for further comment. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security issues.
IsraelApproved the export of spyware produced by the Department of Defense NSO Group and other private Israeli companies recruiting from the country’s cyber-capable military units. Critics say the process is opaque.
Security researchers said it was not known exactly when and how the phones were breached. But Citizen Lab and his team said that four of the six iPhones that were hacked used only SIM cards issued by Israeli telecom companies with the Israeli +972 area code. Amnesty researchers. This led them to question the allegations. NSO Group exporting the versions Pegasus It cannot be used to hack Israeli phone numbers. NSO Group he also said he wasn’t targeting US numbers.
Among those attacked was Ubai Aboudi, a 37-year-old economist and US citizen. He runs the seven-person Bisan Research and Development Center in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, one of six groups Gantz slapped on Oct. 22 as terrorists.
The other two attacked Palestinians who have agreed to be named are researcher Ghassan Halaika from the Al-Haq rights group and lawyer Salah Hammouri, also from Addameer, a human rights organization. The other three identified groups are the International Defense for Children-Palestine, the Association of Palestinian Women’s Committees and the Agricultural Working Committees Association.
Aboudi said he lost “any sense of security” after the “dehumanizing” hacking of a phone that was with him day and night, holding photos of his three children. He said his wife did not sleep for the first three nights after learning of the hack, “from the idea of intruding so deeply into our privacy.”
In particular, he was concerned about people overhearing his conversations with foreign diplomats. Researchers’ examination of Aboudi’s phone determined that it was infected. Pegasus in February.
Aboudi was charged Israel “Pasting the terrorist logo” on groups after failing to persuade European governments and others to cut funding.
Israel He says the groups are linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a left-wing political group that has an armed wing that kills Israelis. Israel and Western governments view the PFLP as a terrorist group. Aboudi served 12 months in prison after being accused of joining the PFLP last year, but denies allegations that he doesn’t belong to the group.
Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, a legal expert at the Israel Democracy Institute, called the findings “really disturbing”. IsraelSecurity agencies, which are largely exempt from the country’s privacy laws, NSO Groupcommercial spyware.
“This actually complicates the government’s relationship with the government. NSO“If the government is indeed both the client and the regulator in a confidential relationship,” Altshuler said.
Andrew Anderson, managing director of Frontline Defenders, said: NSO Group cannot be assured that spyware is not being used illegally by customers and says Israel If it doesn’t bring the company to its knees, it should face international condemnation.
“If the Israeli government refuses to act, there will be consequences for the regulation of trade with the United States. Israel‘ he said via e-mail.
Al-MaskatiThe researcher who discovered the hacks, he He was first alerted on 16 October by Halaika, whose phone was determined to have been hacked in July 2020. Al-Haq maintains sensitive communications with the International Criminal Court regarding allegations of human rights violations.
Asked who she believes was behind the attack, Halaika said, “As human rights defenders living under occupation, we expect this to be an[Israeli]occupation.”
The phone of the third hack victim, Hammouri, was apparently seized in April, researchers said. Two French nationals live Jerusalem, Hammouri was previously sentenced to seven years in prison for security offenses and Israel sees him as a PFLP agent, denies the allegations.
Hammouri declined to speculate on who was behind the attack, saying, “We need to determine who has the talent and who has the motive.”
After Halaika warned him, Al-Maskati said he It scanned 75 phones of Palestinian activists and found six infections. he could not determine how the phones were hacked, he he said, but a timeline of evidence encountered showed that the so-called “iMessage zero-click” exploit was used. NSO Group Used on iPhones. As phishing attempts typically do, this vulnerability is highly effective and requires no user intervention.
Facebook has been sued NSO Group about the use of a similar exploit, allegedly intruding through the worldwide popular encrypted WhatsApp messaging app.
It has come since a report by a consortium of international news organizations in July that snowballed new revelations about the hacking of public figures, including Hungarian investigative journalists, the fiancee of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the ex-wife of the Dubai ruler. possible list NSO Group List of surveillance targets obtained from an anonymous source. Amnesty International and the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories. Among those listed was an Associated Press journalist.
From this list of 50,000 phone numbers, reporters from various news organizations were able to verify at least 47 additional successful hacks, the Washington Post reported.NSO Group refused to ever keep such a list.
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Reported from Lima, Bajak, Peru.
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