State-grade malware - it'd be like targeting somebody with Stuxnet because they had suggested there be a 10-cent bottling fee on Coca-Cola.Will Cathcart is the chief executive of WhatsApp, the downloadable messaging app used by millions around the world as a primary means of communication. So the most reasonable implication is that somebody from a private interest directed somebody from the government in order to target these people because they were pushing against the soda lobby in Mexico.
"The only thing that holds them in common is that they were all advocating to slightly increase the tax on soda beverages. "W e had this crazy case that I found in Mexico back in 2017 where three people - a nutrition activist, a public-health researcher, and a consumer advocate - were all targeted with Pegasus in Mexico. We found that his infected phone was bouncing back and forth between his home network and his university gym over last summer."Ī similar story played out in Mexico in 2017, according to Scott-Railton: "He's a Saudi critic going to college in Montreal. "His name is Omar Abdulaziz," Scott-Railton said. Pegasus has been linked to the death of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and it was used to track a student in Canada who was critical of Saudi Arabia's government. Mansoor is serving a 10-year prison sentence in the UAE for publicly criticizing the government. That "mystery" spyware was actually Pegasus, and Mansoor was being targeted - most likely because of his work as a human-rights advocate. "We thought they looked pretty dicey, so my colleague Bill borrowed a colleague's iPhone, clicked on the links, and was able to successfully get the phone infected with what was then a mystery piece of spyware." "Those text messages actually came bearing some suspicious links," he said. Pegasus was first discovered in 2016 when a man in the United Arab Emirates named Ahmed Mansoor was targeted with "suspicious text messages," Scott-Railton said.
The spyware was created by an Israeli company, the NSO Group, and it's nothing new. That includes text messages as well as your smartphone's camera and microphone. What Pegasus actually does is relatively simple: Once your smartphone is infected with Pegasus, the application provides full access to it, remotely and discreetly.
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