(ANSA) - WASHINGTON, JUL 19 - An Israeli firm accused of
supplying spyware to governments has been linked to a list of
tens of thousands of smartphone numbers, including those of
activists, journalists, business executives and politicians
around the world, according to reports. The NSO Group and its
Pegasus malware -- capable of switching on a phone's camera or
microphone, and harvesting its data -- have been in the
headlines since 2016, when researchers accused it of helping spy
on a dissident in the United Arab Emirates. Sunday's revelations
-- part of a collaborative investigation by The Washington Post,
The Guardian, Le Monde and other media outlets -- raise privacy
concerns and reveal the far-reaching extent to which the private
firm's software could be misused. The leak consists of more than
50,000 smartphone numbers believed to have been identified as
connected to people of interest by NSO clients since 2016, the
news organizations said, although it was unclear how many
devices were actually targeted or surveilled. NSO has denied any
wrongdoing, labelling the allegations "false."
Many numbers on the list were clustered in 10 countries:
Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Hungary, India, Kazakhstan, Mexico,
Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
(ANSA).
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