Journalists, activists and leaders ‘targets of mass Pegasus hacks’ By Frank Bajak July 19, 2021 Boston: An investigation by a group of global media outlets has provided evidence that military-grade malware from Israel-based NSO Group, the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire outfit, is being used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents. From a list of more than 50,000 mobile phone numbers obtained by the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories and the human rights group Amnesty International and shared with 16 news organisations, journalists were able to identify more than 1000 individuals in 50 countries who were allegedly selected by NSO clients for potential surveillance. Journalists at Al Jazeera have been targeted by the advanced spyware.Credit:AP They include 189 journalists, more than 600 politicians and government officials, at least 65 business executives, 85 human rights activists and several heads of state, according to The Washington Post, a consortium member. The journalists work for organisations including The Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde and The Financial Times. Amnesty also reported that its forensic researchers had determined that NSO Group’s flagship Pegasus spyware was successfully installed on the phone of Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, just four days after he was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. The company had previously been implicated in other spying on Khashoggi. Continues: ...... https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle...ts-of-mass-pegasus-hacks-20210719-p58au7.html