IT Guy@T3chFalcon
Pegasus is spyware that silently takes over your phone without you clicking anything.
built by NSO Group. an Israeli company staffed almost entirely by former Unit 8200 veterans, Israel's offensive cyber division.
once on your phone:
— reads every message. Signal. WhatsApp. iMessage. all of it.
— activates your mic and camera without you knowing
— logs every keystroke
— tracks your location in real time
no click required. a silent packet sent to your WhatsApp or iMessage is enough. you never see it.
Pegasus reads your message after it's decrypted on your screen.
2020: a list of 50,000 targets leaked. 80 journalists from 17 countries spent months verifying it.
what they found: 180 journalists. lawyers. activists. opposition politicians. Jamal Khashoggi's fiancée. the editor of the Financial Times.
NSO said it was for terrorists and serious criminals.
The list had journalists.
Pegasus is classified as a military weapon by Israel. every sale approved by the Israeli Ministry of Defense. they approved sales to Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Rwanda, and other authoritarian regimes that used it to hunt Separatists.
WhatsApp sued NSO. won. $168 million damages. reduced to $4 million.
Recently, Meta accused NSO of violating the court injunction. still targeting WhatsApp users after the lawsuit. while under a court order not to.
NSO's response to every allegation: "we don't operate the systems. we don't see the targets. we don't know what our clients do."