Juba, South Sudan,
July 28, 2021 – Israeli cyber intelligence software manufacturing firm NSO Group has disowned Pegasus software, a surveillance technology spyware it helped managed for nearly a decade.
This comes as Amnesty International and media non-profit Forbidden Stories continue to release more damning reports on how the software was sold and abused by governments around the world under the Pegasus Project.
According to earlier reports, Forbidden Stories, a consortium of international media outlets compromising The Washing Post and The Guardian, revealed that the NSO Group-owned spyware was used to target journalists, human rights defenders, and government critics around the world.
At least 14 current and former Heads of State and Government had their phone numbers listed among 50,000 Pegasus potential surveillance targets.
They include three presidents, 10 prime ministers, and a king. To be explicit, three sitting presidents, Emmanuel Macron of France, Iraq’s Barham Salih, and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa were on the list. Three incumbent prime ministers; Pakistan’s Imran Khan, Egypt’s Mostafa Madbouly, and Saad-Eddine El Othmani of Morocco were also potential targets.
Astonishingly, Ramaphosa was listed by Rwanda in 2019 when diplomatic relations between Kigali and Pretoria were shaky.
Seven former prime ministers who, according to time stamps on the surveillance list, were placed during their terms of office.
They include Uganda’s Ruhakana Rugunda (also listed by Rwanda), Ahmed Obeid bin Daghr of Yemen, Lebanon’s Saad Hariri, France’s Édouard Philippe, Bakitzhan Sagintayev of Kazakhstan, Algeria’s Noureddine Bedoui, and Charles Michel of Belgium. Mohammed VI of Morocco is the only king who made the list.
As more details trickle in about the scandal, however, the NSO Group released a scathing press statement Wednesday disowning the software and suspending media inquiries into the saga.
“In light of the recent planned and well-orchestrated media campaign led by Forbidden Stories and push by special interest groups, and due to the complete disregard of the facts, NSO is announcing it will no longer be responding to media inquiries on this matter and it will not play along with the vicious and slanderous campaign,” the statement says in part.
The tech firm insists that the list uncovered by the media consortium with support from Amnesty Tech was not that of potential targets adding unequivocally that “the numbers on the list are not related to NSO Group”.
The Israeli tech firm described as “erroneous and false” what it calls “any claim” that a name in the list is necessarily related to a Pegasus target or Pegasus potential target.
As pressure bites, the firm said Wednesday that it does not operate the system and does not have access to customers’ data.
“NSO is a technology company. We do not operate the system, nor do we have access to the data of our customers, yet they are obligated to provide us with such information under investigations,” it says on its official website adding that it is also contemplating an investigation and pledged to take aggressive steps to address the matter if finds proof.
“NSO will thoroughly investigate any credible proof of misuse of its technologies, as we always had, and will shut down the system where necessary,” it continues.
