NSO Group’s notorious spyware Pegasus used to hack political activists in Thailand

Pegasus has been used by governments to spy on journalists, activists, and dissidents and the Israeli firm behind it, NSO Group, has been sued by Apple and placed on a U.S. trade blacklist.
20 July 2022
Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

At least 30 political activists in Thailand have been hacked using Israeli surveillance spyware Pegasus, according to a joint investigation by human rights and cyber monitoring groups, which suspect the attacks were launched locally.

The probe by Thai human rights group iLaw, Southeast Asian internet watchdog Digital Reach and Toronto-based Citizen Lab, followed a mass alert from Apple Inc. in November informing thousands of iPhone users, including in Thailand, that they were targets of "state-sponsored attackers".

Pegasus has been used by governments to spy on journalists, activists, and dissidents and the Israeli firm behind it, NSO Group, has been sued by Apple and placed on a U.S. trade blacklist.

iLaw in its report said 24 political activists, three academics and three members of civil society groups were targeted between October 2020 and November 2021. In 2019 the Thai government won a widely criticised election after a coup several years earlier that clamped down on freedoms. Since then, it has arrested many protest organizers, including some named as hacking victims in the new reports.

- CyberBeat

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