Pegasus: iPhone infected at Boris Johnson, in the USA and Catalonia

UNITED STATES

After having already revealeda similar case targeting a human rights defender, cybersecurity experts at Citizen Lab announced today that Americans have recently been targeted by Pegasus. Spyware has already been implicated in multiple similar cases in recent months; it is sold againstseveral hundred thousand dollarsgovernments or police to track just about anyone.

To date, the program's publisher (NSO Group) prohibits targeting mobiles in the United States. The company is in fact based in Israel and does not wish to tarnish its relations with the Biden administration. To remedy this, however, the attackers would have used a third-party app, Candiru. Furthermore, the developers behind this discovery also mention the case of the strategy called “off-center targeting“, which consists of stealing the devices of loved ones in the case where that of the initial target is not accessible.

Spain

To this file are added more than sixty cases recorded in Catalonia. Among them, we find activists but also students and people working in NGOs. At the highest level still, it is the presidents of the region who are concerned. Here, we are not only talking aboutCarles Puigdemontbut also Joaquim Torra - who replaced him between 2018 and 2020 - and the current number one; Father Aragonès.

The main suspect? For Citizen Lab, there are few doubts: it is most likely theSpain. The country has in fact been trying to contain the independence of Barcelona for several years now, as best it can.

• Also read: how to know if your iPhone is monitored by Pegasus?

United Kingdom

The icing on the cake is that 10 Downing Street also saw some of its teams' iPhones hacked. It isThe New Yorkerwhich reports these facts, explaining that the motive of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson is part of the list. The potentially exfiltrated data remains unknown, but whoever is responsible may be hiding fromUnited Arab Emirates.

Finally, an analysis also showed that theForeign and Commonwealth Officewas targeted five times between July 2020 and June 2021. Here, it is always the UAE which is singled out, alongside India and Cyprus.